Rakshita was brought up in Bangalore. Her father B. C. Gowrishankar was a popular cinematographer who had worked to all actors and many hit movies of his time and her mother Mamatha Rao who acted in Hosa Belaku.

Actor

Rakshita started her career with a Kannada movie Appu with Puneeth Rajkumar. She also acted in the remake of the same movie in Telugu titled Idiot and in Tamil titled "Dum". In Tamil she acted alongside Silambarasan also known as "Simbu". Her Kannada film career as heroine got a twist when her movie Kalasipalya became a hit. Within a short period of time, Rakshita acted with major Telugu heroes such as Chiranjeevi, Nagarjuna, Mahesh Babu, Jr NTR, Jagapathi Babu and Ravi Teja and in Tamil she got opportunity to act with Ilayathalapathy Vijay. She also made a special appearance in a song in Lakshmi Narasimha.

After her marriage to the director Prem, she cut down on her acting profession and began supporting him in film making. She, later turned as producer with her home banner Prem Pictures, for one of the most prestigious project Jogayya starring Shivarajkumar marking his 100th movie in the lead, directed by Prem.

Politics

Rakshita announced of joining the Badavara Shramikara Raitara (BSR) Congress in March 2012, after politician B. Sriramulu announced of founding it, which eventually happened in 2013. She served as the President of the women's wing of the BSR Congress till April 2013, when she quit the party citing differences with the party members over contesting elections from a constituency of her choice at the Karnataka Legislative Assembly election. In the same month, she joined the Janata Dal (Secular). She again had differences with the party over its ignoring of her plea for a ticket to contest from Mandya at the 2014 general election, and quit in March 2014, joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Following this, she became subject to media and public ridicule, and was called a "party-hopper", having changed 3 political parties in two years.^[5]

She likes reading books, listening to music and traveling. Her favourite authors are Agatha Christie and Sidney Sheldon. She is married to Kannada cinema director Prem.^[6]

As producer

As actor

Television

• 2014 - Thaka Dhimi Tha Dancing star - Judge (ETV Kannada)
• 2015 - Putani Pantru Season 2 - Judge (Suvarna TV Kannada)
• 2017- Comedy Khiladigalu - Judge (Z Kannada)