Sri Rama Rao Gandikota

Sri Rama Rao Gandikota is a retired Commander in the Indian Navy, a music lover and exponent of Carnatic music, a philatelist and a numismatist. He was born on April 6, 1942 in Andhra Pradesh India. He is one of the directors of Visakha Music and Dance Academy and lives with his wife Ramalakshmi Gandikota in Visakhapatnam, India.

As a naval officer he was trained in missile warfare by the Soviet Navy as part of an Indian Contingent sent for training to Vladivostok. Following that he served in the "Killer Squadron" where he was the first person in the history of the Indian navy to fire a missile from an Indian naval warship. During that exercise he served on INS Nirbhik, a Vidyut class missile boat. He was part of the missile boat group sent to attack Karachi harbor that effectively ended the 1971 Indo-Pak war. INS Nirbhik was diverted just before the operation to provide rescue support to the sinking warship INS Khukri.

Cdr. G. Sri Rama Rao and Mrs. Ramalakshmi Gandikota

Since childhood Sri Rama Rao has had an interest in music, stamps, coins and currency. Today he is one of the most well known philatelists and numismatists in Andhra Pradesh with a number of local, state, national and international awards. These include 5 Limca Book of Records (India) and 4 Asia book or records. Sri Rama Rao was instrumental in the planning, design and photographic contribution to the development and release of a special folder of stamps on Indian Musicians on September 3, 2014 in Visakhapatnam. On that occasion he was felicitated by the Chief Postmaster General of Visakhapatnam and the vice chancellor of Andhra University.

In 2013 Sri Rama Rao was honored by Dr. M. Balamuralikrishna with the traditional shawl placed on his shoulders for his achievements to philately and numismatics in music and stated in his visitors book, "He is doing a great service to music". In 2014 Sri Rama Rao was invited to exhibit musical stamps and coins on the occasion of the release of the commemorative stamps on Indian musicians in Visakhapatnam. Over 1200 school students visited this philatelic and numismatic tribute to music. Sri Rama Rao was invited to deliver the inaugural lecture demonstration at the 2014 Madras Music Festival by the Madras Music Academy and conduct an exhibition of rare stamps and coins on music. He delivered this lecture on December 16, 2014 to the wonder and amazement of audience from around India and the World on the variety of stamps dedicated to music, their history from the earliest to modern times and the variety of such stamps.

On February 7, 2016 Cdr. G. Sri Rama Rao participated in the international fleet review as part of the veteran Indian naval officers and sailors contingent. He also setup an exhibit of stamps and coins on the Indian navy and music at the Visakha Museum on the invitation of the Indian Navy.

His wife Ramalakshmi, daughter Prasanthi and son-in-law Ramkishore (Vice President Aura Semiconductor) are actively involved in his care and they hope his experience and efforts will also help other victims of spinal cord injuries.