Diwan Bahadur Raghunatha Rao Ramachandra Rao (c. 1871 – July 1936) was an Indian civil servant, mathematician and social and political activist who served as

District Collector A District Collector-cum-District Magistrate (also known as Deputy Commissioner in some states) is an All India Service officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre who is responsible for ''land revenue collection'', ''canal reven ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Early life and education

Ramachandra Rao was born in an aristocratic Thanjavur Marathi Deshastha Brahmin family in 1871. He had his schooling in

Trivandrum Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populatio ...

and graduated from the

Presidency College, Madras Presidency College is an art, commerce, and science college in the city of Chennai in Tamil Nadu, India. On 16 October 1840, this school was established as the Madras Preparatory School before being repurposed as a high school, and then a gra ...

Career

Rao entered the Indian Civil Service in 1890 at the age of nineteen. He served as Assistant Collector and Magistrate from 1890 to 1891 and as an official in the Revenue Department from 1891 to 1892. Rao became Deputy Collector in 1892 and Sub Collector in 1898. In 1901, Rao was appointed District Collector of Kurnool and served till 1907. He served as Registrar of Cooperative Societies from 1907 to 1910. From 1910 to 1914, Rao served as District Collector of Nellore and in the Indian Public Services Commission from 4 to 20 January 1914. Rao retired as District Collector of Madras in 1926.

Later years and death

After his retirement, Rao devoted his time to social and political activities. He organised an All India Exhibition in Madras during the 1927 Indian National Congress session. Rao always wore Swadeshi clothes and was a close associate of

C. Rajagopalachari Chakravarti Rajagopalachari (10 December 1878 – 25 December 1972), popularly known as Rajaji or C.R., also known as Mootharignar Rajaji (Rajaji'', the Scholar Emeritus''), was an Indian statesman, writer, lawyer, and independence activis ...

. Ramachandra Rao suffered a paralytic stroke in 1930. Following the stroke, Ramachandra Rao was confined to his bed. He died in July 1936 at the age of 65.

Other interests

Ramachandra Rao was a keen mathematician and astronomer and served as President of the Indian Mathematical Society. He was president of the

Indian Mathematical Society Indian Mathematical Society (IMS) is the oldest organization in India devoted to the promotion of study and research in mathematics. The Society was founded in April 1907 by V. Ramaswami Aiyar with its headquarters at Pune. The Society started ...

from 1915-17. He assisted mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan when he was jobless and got him a clerk's job at the Madras Port Trust.

In popular culture

In the Tamil biographical film Ramanujan (2014), actor

Sarath Babu Sathyam Babu Dixithulu (born 31 July 1951), known by his stage name Sarath Babu, is an Indian actor known for his works predominantly in Tamil and Telugu cinema. He has worked in more than 200 films. He has appeared in Telugu, Tamil, Kannada a ...

played the character Diwan Bahadur R. Ramachandra Rao ICS. The movie itself was based on the life of renowned Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rao, R. Ramachandra 1871 births 1936 deaths Presidency College, Chennai alumni People from Thanjavur district Indian civil servants 19th-century Indian mathematicians Presidents of the Indian Mathematical Society Dewan Bahadurs 20th-century Indian mathematicians Scientists from Tamil Nadu Mathematicians in British India