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Sri.Nyayapathi Raghava Rao (Annayya)

Sri.Nyayapathi Raghava Rao (Annayya) was born on April 13th 1905 in Berhampur, India. He comes from a family of lawyers, journalists and freedom fighters. He grew up in a family which was very talented culturally and his father encouraged children to develop an outgoing personality.

Annayya graduated from Maharaja College in Vijayanagaram and married his classmate Smt.N.Kameswari (Akkayya). Later they shifted over to Madras and he joined “The Hindu” as sub-editor before resigning and starting the publication of his own children’s magazine “Bala”. He continued to conduct radio programmes for children along with his wife for decades in Madras and Hyderabad.

He was a writer, singer, actor, composer, publisher and a broadcaster. His multi faceted talent is remembered by all Telugu speaking people even today.

Achievements of Sri.Nyayapathi Raghava Rao

  • Published the First Telugu children’s magazine “BALA” in early 40’s along with his wife Smt. N. Kameswari. It ran successfully for almost two decades. It was an inspiration to the present day children’s magazines like ‘chandamama’ etc.
  • Established Andhra Balananda Sangham in 1940.
  • Initiated the “Balananda Sanghams Movement” and started children’s organizations all over the state.
  • Along with his wife, he was the first to conduct children’s programmes in All India Radio in Telugu on a regular basis. This was greatly popular and appreciated by all telugu speaking people for many years as that was the only form of entertainment available to them till early 70’s.
  • Created many fun characters and wrote innumerable radio plays for children. These characters are still household names in Andhra Pradesh.
  • Produced the first full length children’s film called “Balanandam” along with a well known popular director Sri. K. S. Prakasa Rao in telugu. This was the only true full length telugu children’s film to date. The entire star cast were children.
  • Wrote and published scores of stories, songs, skits, dramas, musical plays and nursery rhymes for children.
  • Conducted four All India children’s conferences along with the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
  • Along with his wife, he was the first to release twelve children’s gramophone records with the help of HMV Records. The songs were written and tuned by him and the orchestration was done by Sri. K. V. Mahadevan. These songs are popular even today!
  • Winner of the "National Competition for Juvenile Literature" for his book of nursery rhymes “Badiganta”.
  • Member of the child panel of "Central and State Social Welfare Board" for many years
  • Influential in establishing the “ Jawahar Balbhavan” in Andhra Pradesh.
  • Freedom fighter and publisher of “Andhravani” a nationalist Telugu weekly along with his brother Sri. Nyayapathi Narayana Murthy, a famous journalist.
  • Member of the Child Welfare Panel set up by the "Central Social Welfare Board" and "State Social Welfare Board" for many years.
  • Chairman of the Children’s wing at the “World Telugu Conference" in 1975.
  • Instrumental in starting the "Balala Academy" constituted by the Government of Andhra Pradesh and worked as Secretary for a long time.