[1] Rao was born in a Kannada speaking Madhwa Brahmin family[2] on 8 July 1908 at Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu to Kasturirangachar and Bharati Amma.

He was awarded the Ph.D. of Cambridge in 1937; the title of his doctoral thesis was "The National Income of British India, 1931-1932".

[citation needed] He served as a Union Minister for Education in 1971, elected as a member for Bellary in 1967 and 1971.He was awarded Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 1974.

Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysuru, an office of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, is considered to be the brainchild of Rao.

[4] Notable among his works are: Taxation of Income in India (1931), An essay on India’s National Income -1925-29 – (1936); The National Income of British India (1940); India and International Currency Plans (1945); Post-War Rupee (1948); Greater Delhi A Study in Urbanization 1940-1957 (1965); Gandhian Alternative to Western Socialism (1970); Values and Economic Development – The Indian Challenge (1971); the Nehru Legacy (1971); Swami Vivekananda – Prophet of Vedantic Socialism (1978); Many Languages and One Nation – the Problem of Integration (1979); India’s National Income 1950-80 (1983) Food, Nutrition and Poverty (1982); Indian socialism: Retrospect and Prospect (1982), etc.