VP releases commemorative coin to mark statistician's birth

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu today released a commemorative coin of Rs 125 denomination on the occasion of 12th Statistics Day and 125th birth anniversary of scientist Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.

Naidu, who unveiled the coin at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in north Kolkata in the presence of Union Statistics Minister D V Sadananda Gowda, said he felt privileged to be a part of the programme.

Bratya Basu, the state's information technology and electronics minister, was also present at the occasion among other dignitaries.

The vice president referred to Mahalanobis as the "architect" of national sample survey organization and a "visionary" who set up the north Kolkata institute.

"This is a wonderfully designed coin - a fitting tribute to Mahalanobis, who was a great soul and genius statistician. I am happy to be a part of this initiative," he said.

Union minister Gowda, during his speech, said the country had been observing June 29 as Statistics Day since 2007 in recognition of the invaluable contribution of Mahalanobis.

"Mahalanobis had thought about an environment, where information would be secure and data collection would be done for professional considerations. ISI has lived up to that objective," he said, adding that the government would be drafting a statistics policy soon after taking opinion of all stakeholders.

The director of the institute, Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, said the institution had been facilitating high-level inter-disciplinary research in statistics, driven by real-life problems faced by the country, as visualised by its founder.

An audio clip, dwelling on the three-decade-long relationship between Mahalanobis and Rabindranath Tagore, with voice-over of noted actor Barun Chanda, was also released at the institute today on this occasion.