Professor Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao - Dr.Rao to most of us - was in thefirst batch of Master’s students in Statistics of the Calcutta University. He graduated with marks that remain unsurpassed. His name is etched in the annals of statistical science through Cramér–Rao bound, Rao–Blackwell theorem and Rao’s Score Test. He has been elected to the Fellowship of The Royal Society, awarded the U.S. National Medal of Science and Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India. We celebrate his birth centenary because through his contributions he has elevated statistics as an indispensable applied tool in all walks of life, with firm theoretical foundations.