National Statistics Day

National Statistics Day

Monjit Narayan Deka

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic” – Joseph Stalin.

The government of India declared 29th June as the “National Statistics Day”, as notified in the gazette of India on 5th June 2007, in the category of special day to celebrate at the national level.

On this day father of Indian statistics Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis was born in Calcutta in 1893.

Today the country is celebrating the nineteenth national statistics day to remember the pioneer of the statistical movement in India and his notable contribution towards the field of economic planning and statistical development in the post independence India.

Another important aim of the national statistics day is that the Government is committed to popularise the Indian statistical system among the people and to acknowledge and appreciate the exceptional contributions made by the statisticians of India.

The statistics is the endless quest, to study the past to ignite the present to light the way to a future, must have been practiced from the beginning of mankind. The need of statistical literacy in our modern age was foreseen by Sh. H. G. Wells when he stated, “Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write.”

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In India a very elaborate system of administrative records of official statistics was evolved dated back 3rd century BC in the form of Statecraft which may be traced in the texts of Arthasashtra by Kautilya (Chanakya), a minister of famous king Chandragupta Maurya and then in Ain-i-Akbari completed by Shaikh Abu al-Fazl ibn Mubarak, one of the nine gems in the court of Emperor Akbar (circa 1590 AD).

The modern era of development of the theory of statistics may be said to have begun in the decade 1893 to 1903 through the brilliant contribution of Karl Pearson, the British Mathematician.

Within the realms of scientific techniques whereby optimal decision can be taken there seems to be no human activity whose value cannot be enhanced by injecting statistical ideas in planning and by using statistical method for efficient analysis of data and assessment of results for feedback and control. Present day statistics plays an important role in scientific research, industry, business, literature, medicine, archaeology, court of law, defence and detective work etc.

The end of colonial rule left behind tremendous data gap for estimating the national income in India. The necessity for creating a strong data base for economic planning was keenly felt by the planners and policy makers. In the recent years to achieve the credibility, timeliness and adequacy of the National Statistical System, a permanent National Statistical Commission (NSC) was set up by the Government of India on 1st June, 2005.

The post of the Chief Statistician of India (CSI) was specially created to serve as the Head of the National Statistics Office (NSO) and also as Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), with the objective of standerdising national statistical data base.

The foundation of systematic and comprehensive development of statistics as a key technology and study of statistics as a separate discipline in India was however laid only when Prof. Mahalanobis formed the nucleus of the Statistical Laboratory in a portion of the Physics Department of the Presidency College in Calcutta where he was a faculty member.

This later grew into the famous Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1931 which was elevated to the institute of national importance by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1959. Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, the eminent theoretical and applied statistician, supported Mahalanobis in the initial years of ISI to lay strong foundation on the scientific side, and once compared the ISI to the banyan tree with its many branches.

Prof. Mahalanobis, as a Founder-Editor published ‘Sankhyā’, the Indian journal on Statistics in June 1933. He was instrumental in India’s 2nd Five year plan. Sir R. A. Fisher suggested the name of Mahalanobis as a consultant to help the Imperial (now Indian) Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), during the formative year 1929, in their statistical work.

Prof. Mahalanobis begins his work on statistical problems by analysing the examination data of Calcutta University. The seminal paper on D2-statistics (known as Mahalanobis generalised distance) entitled ‘test and Measures of Group Divergence’, was one of the main contribution of Mahalanobis to statistical methods and was used to measure the extent of divergence or affinity between groups.

In anthropology, biometry, demography, genetics, econometrics, geology, psychology etc. D2-statistics is a very useful tool to measure the extent of inter-relationship. It was due to Mahalanobis, the applied statistical techniques of agricultural experiment designed by Sir R. A. Fisher were introduced in India for the first time in the Agricultural Survey.

The beauty of the sample survey is to see the ocean in a drop of water. Among his most significant and enduring contributions, Prof. Mahalanobis recognised the transformative potential of large scale sample surveys. Sir R. A. Fisher strongly supported the development of sampling method in India. Three main contribution of Prof. Mahalanobis to sampling methods were – 1) Pilot Survey 2) Inter-penetrating Network of Samples (IPNS) and 3) concept of Optimum Design of Survey.

The brain child of Prof. Mahalanobis, the ‘National Sample Survey’ (NSS) emerged as a pioneering institution, and a key fact finding body of the Govt of India. It conducts nationwide large scale sample survey in the field of statistics to support vital developmental planning within the country; also it is recognised as the world’s largest multi-subject integrated continuing sample survey organisation of its kind-dedicated to the seamless flow of data to fulfill the vision of “data for development”.

On this auspicious day, the people of Assam proudly remember the eminent Assamese statistician Dr. Jyoti Prasad Medhi D. Sc., who earned international fame for his contribution to statistics. He received his Doctor of Science (Dr-es-Sc) degree from the University of Paris and became the second Assamese, after Krishnakanta Handique, to complete advanced research in the French Language.

A versatile genius, Dr. Medhi’s seminal paper on the ‘waiting time distribution for Bulk-queues’ stand as a masterpiece in statistical theory. Widely regarded as a global authority on the Probability Theory, he brought Assam to the forefront of the international academic stage.

His text book, ‘Stochastic Processes’ was adopted by the universities around the world. Notably, the celebrated Assamese writer ‘Sourav Kumar Chaliha’ dedicated his book ‘Oxanto Electron’ to his distinguished nephew, Dr. Medhi.

Monjit Narayan Deka: Mobile-9435050410

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