Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis: Father of Indian statistics, founder of ISI | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis: Father of Indian statistics, founder of ISI

Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Byhindustantimes.com| Edited by: Meenakshi Ray
Jun 29, 2020 10:56 AM IST

PC Mahalanobis was also instrumental in formulating India’s second five-year-plan (1956-1961), which laid the blueprint for industrialisation and development in India.

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, considered the father of modern statistics in India, founded the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), shaped the Planning Commission and pioneered methodologies for large-scale surveys.

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis’ birth anniversary is celebrated as the National Statistics Day.(@_shibendu/Twitter)
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis’ birth anniversary is celebrated as the National Statistics Day.(@_shibendu/Twitter)

PC Mahalanobis was also instrumental in formulating India’s second five-year-plan (1956-1961), which laid the blueprint for industrialisation and development in India.

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Mahalanobis’ birth anniversary is celebrated as the National Statistics Day.

He was the eldest of six children—two sons and four daughters—of Probodh Chandra Mahalanobis and Nirodbashini Devi and was born on June 29, 1893. He died on June 28, 1972, a day before his 79th birthday.

Here are a few things about PC Mahalanobis on his 128th birth anniversary:

* Mahalanobis studied at the Brahmo Boys’ School, which was founded by his grandfather Guru Charan Mahalanobis in 1904, and joined the Presidency College to study physics. He graduated in 1912. He also attended the King’s College in Cambridge, where he met the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan.

* He worked at the Cavendish Laboratory with physicist CTR Wilson for a while. He returned to India and started teaching physics at the Presidency College in 1922 and was a teacher there for more than three decades. He was also the principal of Presidency College for a few years and held the post of Meteorologist in the Alipore Observatory in Calcutta from 1922 to 1926.

* He formed a group that was interested in statistics, which later expanded and eventually, the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) was founded in 1932. In the next year, he launched Sankhya: The Indian Journal Of Statistics.

* He also established the National Sample Survey in 1950 and set up the Central Statistical Organisation to coordinate statistical activities. He became a member of the Planning Commission in 1955 and continued in that capacity till 1967. ISI was declared as an institute of national importance in 1959.

* Mahalanobis devised a measure of comparison between two data sets, now called Mahalanobis distance. He first proposed it in 1930 in the context of a study on racial likeness and it is now widely used in the field of cluster analysis and classification.

* He also introduced innovative techniques for conducting large-scale sample surveys, calculated acreages and crop yields, using the method of random sampling. He devised a statistical method called fractile graphical analysis, used to compare socio-economic conditions of varied groups.

* He analysed data regarding the floods in Odisha and published his findings in 1926. This analysis later formed the basis for the construction of the Hirakud dam on the Mahanadi River.

* He was honoured with the Padma Vibhushan in 1968 and was also conferred a large number of awards by international organisations.

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