Born: 29th June 1893
Died: 28th June 1972
Professor Prashant Chander Mahalanobis was born on 29th June 1893, to a family of rationals. He did his primary studies at the Brahmo Boys School, Calcutta, and later for higher studies, he went to Presidency College to study Physics. There he was taught by Prafulla Chandra Ray and Jagadish Chandra Bose and completed his graduation in 1912. He also had Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose and Meghnad Saha (famous astrophysicist) as his juniors. In 1913, Mahalanobis went to London and joined King’s College, Cambridge where he met the great mathematician Shri Srinivasa Ramanujan. After his return to India Mahalanobis was invited to teach Physics at Presidency College. A group was made at Presidency College which consists of people having an interest in statistics. Along with them, Professor Mahalanobis founded the Indian Statistical Institute in 1932, and in 1959, the institute was declared as an institute of national importance. Professor Mahalanobis’s contribution to the field of statistics and mathematics was marked by a Google doodle, which was done by “Nishant Choksi ” (renowned illustrator). Choksi’s art showed the Bengali scientist with the title of “Mahalanobis distance” (a statistical measure frequently used in the studies of population distribution). He was also called PCM by his colleagues and friends and was one of the chief members of the first Planning Commission of India. He was associated with Visva-Bharati University and also served as a secretary to Shri Rabindranath Tagore. Professor was honored with the Padma Vibhushan in 1968, Weldon Memorial Prize from the University of Oxford in 1944, and Fellow of the Royal Society, London in 1945. Our former PM Shri Manmohan Singh declared 29th June as the “National Statistics Day ” in Professor Mahalanobis’s honour. Swami Vivekanand Subharti University remembers India’s legendary statistician on his birth anniversary, who is also known as the Father of Indian Statistics. Professor Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis was known to pass away three weeks after an abdominal operation on 28th June 1972, Calcutta which was one day before his 79th birthday.
