Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (పాములపర్తి వెంకట నరసింహారావు) (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was the 12th Prime Minister of the Republic of India (1991-1996). He belonged to a Telugu Niyogi Brahmin family from a village called Vangara, BheemaDevaraPally Mandal in the Karimnagar district. He was the first and only Telugu to become the Prime Minister of India.
P. V. Narasimha Rao led one of the most important administrations in India's modern history, overseeing a major economic transformation and several incidents affecting national security. Rao accelerated the dismantling of the license raj, work that originally initiated under the government of Rajiv Gandhi. Rao, also called the "Father of Indian Economic Reforms," is best remembered for launching India's free market reforms that rescued the almost bankrupt nation from economic collapse. He was also commonly referred to as the Chanakya of modern India for his ability to steer tough economic and political legislation through the parliament at a time when he headed a minority government. As a member of the Congress-I party,he served as a chief minister (1971-73) in the Andhra Pradesh state government. He also held several central cabinet posts between 1980-89 under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, including foreign affairs minister and the defence minister.
Besides being a politician, PV was an eminent scholar. He was a polyglot and could speak 13 languages including Urdu, Marathi, Kannada, Hindi, Telugu and English with a fluency akin to a native speaker. In addition to seven Indian languages, he spoke English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Persian. Along with his cousin Pamulaparthi Sadasiva Rao, PV edited a Telugu weekly magazine called Kakatiya Patrika from 1948 to 1955.
