National Statistics Day

Divyansh Bordia -

National Statistics Day is celebrated on 29th June every year to mark the notable contribution made by Prof. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in the field of economic planning and statistical development. On this day, various seminars, discussions, and competitions are held to highlight the importance of official statistics in national development.

Why do we celebrate National Statistics Day?

National Statistics Day is celebrated to honor the work of the ‘father of Indian statistics’ Prof. Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis. He was born on 29th June 1893 in Kolkata, West Bengal. He was one of the members of the first Planning Commission of India. He is remembered for his contribution to the field of statistics and is known for the development of a statistical measure known as the Mahalanobis distance. The usage of this formula is majorly concentrated in cluster analysis and classification. He was also the founding member of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) and contributed to the design of large-scale sample surveys.

Indian Statistical Institute

The significance of this educational institute cannot be ignored when talking about the importance of statistical education. Indian Statistical Institute is an institute of national importance that was established in 1931 to focus on the importance of statistics in national development. Students willing to learn the concepts of statistics, quantitative economics and related sciences, and computer sciences can apply for admission to ISI.

Importance of Statistics

Statistics is all about learning from data. The experts in this field collect data from various touchpoints, analyze the data, and then present the results effectively. The concepts of this subject also serve as a foundation for many topics. Statistical concepts are used in the following fields:

  • Statistics in Planning

Government and private organizations use statistics to formulate policies and decide their growth objectives. Companies use various data like income, production, consumption, and so on to formulate a plan. With the help of the correct data, government and non-government organizations can plan their programs more effectively.

  • Statistics in Mathematics

Statistics and mathematics cannot be separated. It is entirely dependent on mathematical concepts and equations. The topics of statistics are essential to understand business mathematics. Likewise, applied mathematics is a part of statistics. In addition, computational mathematics is also based on advanced statistics.

  • Statistics in Economics

When learning economics, learners cannot overlook the importance of statistics. Every branch of economics is related to statistics. When learning concepts like consumption, production, distribution, and public finance, learners use various statistical methods. Government organizations also use statistics to calculate economic parameters like GDP and per capita income.

  • Statistics in Big Data and Data Science

Statistics has a special place in data analytics and data science. Big data is dependent on statistics. It is used to sort raw data.

  • Statistics in Trade

Trading without statistics may be troublesome. With the help of statistical tools, traders can make wise decisions in uncertain situations. Moreover, they can use recent statistics data to predict future situations.

In addition to the fields mentioned above, statistics are also used to solve problems and gain insight into sectors like the healthcare industry, education, and weather forecasting.

Great Indian Statisticians

When learning various statistical tools and techniques, learners are eager to know about the individuals or groups of individuals who worked to upgrade those tools. National Statistics Day is celebrated to show respect to statisticians. We bring you the list of some great Indian statisticians who worked for the development of statistics and brought it to the place where it is today.

  • Siva Athreya

Siva Ramachandran Athreya is a probability theorist who specializes in the field of population biology and statistical physics. Owing to his brilliant work and contribution to statistics, he received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for science and technology in 2012. This award is the highest award for science and technology in India.

  • Raghu Raj Bahadur

Raghu Raj Bahadur was born in Delhi and completed his early education in Delhi. He completed his BA and MA in mathematics at Delhi University and then later moved to the University of North Carolina to complete his doctorate. He is also known as the architect of the modern theory of mathematical statistics. Raghu Raj Bahadur also served as the President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics from 1974-75. Some of his best-known work includes “Bahadur Efficiency” and the Bahadur-Ghosh-Kiefer representation.

  • Sudipto Banerjee

Sudipto Banerjee has made some remarkable contributions to the field of statistics. His work on Bayesian hierarchical modeling and inference for spatial data analysis has helped in solving multiple problems. Currently, Sudipto Banerjee holds the position of Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Public Health at the University of California.

  • Debabrata Basu

Debabrata Basu was one of the leading mathematicians and statisticians in India. He worked on the development of survey sampling. During his service years, he was associated with the Indian Statistical Institute and Florida State University. He joined ISI as a research scholar under C.R. Rao. He wrote many foundation papers and pointed out the deficiencies in the methods of Neyman-Pearson.

  • Anil Kumar Bhattacharya

Anil Kumar Bhattacharya was born in West Bengal and greatly contributed to the development of statistics and its related field. He also worked at the Indian Statistical Institute in the 1930s and continued till the early 1940s. He is known for the development of the Bhattacharya coefficient, based on which he defined the Bhattacharya distance. The tools developed by him are significantly used in comparing statistical samples in biology, computer science, physics, etc.

  • Arup Bose

Arup Bose is an Indian statistician known for his work in sequential analysis, statistical estimation in diffusion processes, the law of large numbers and central limit theorems, resampling methods, time series, and more. Because of his contribution to this field, he was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology.

National Statistics Day is a significant day for every statistician. Every year, this day is celebrated under a unique theme. In 2021, the theme for National Statistics Day was Sustainable Development Goals. These goals include ending hunger, achieving food security and improved nutrition, and promoting sustainable agriculture.

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