June 29 is celebrated as National Statistics Day in India, to mark the birthday of Prof. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (PCM)—one of the most important statisticians of the 20th century. He set up the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata (in 1931), a place which has and continues to produce statisticians of great repute.
CVV, with its vision to promote the Scientific Heritage of India, observed the day by conducting a series of events aimed at popularising the contributions of PCM and also creating interest in the discipline of Statistics. Vice Chancellor Prof. Nagaraj Neerchal, himself an alumnus of ISI, kicked off the events by delivering a talk titled ‘The Prophet of Statistics: PCM’.
Next, another ISI alumnus, Prof. T. Krishna Kumar, Director, Rockville Analytics, USA and former Professor IIM, Bengaluru, spoke about the contribution of PCM to Economic Planning in an interview with Prof. Nagaraj and Asst. Prof. R. Venkata Raghavan.
To find out about the contemporary role of Statistics in India, CVV invited Prof. Bimal Kumar Roy, the Chairperson of the National Statistical Commission (NSC), a renowned cryptologist, to deliver a short message. Prof. Kumar remarked that PCM, if he were alive today, would be proud to see how statistics was helping the country in its progress.
To popularise Statistics among non-specialists, CVV released a Statistics Crossword of frequently used Statistical terms.
