Jena's number crunch

That Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation Srikant Jena has something of a precarious grasp of the statistics that his ministry handles is an open secret. Just how precarious was underlined on Statistics Day in front of an audience jam-packed in Vigyan Bhavan. Jena, who chose to speak extempore rather than rely on the speech prepared by his department, consistently mentioned some random numbers from the 66th Round of the National Sample Survey conducted by The National Sample Survey Organisation. He seemed blithely unaware that the results of the 68th Round of the survey are already out. Interestingly, Jena emphasised that the data released should be "near to accurate". But the minister himself missed this parameter by miles.