Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis: Need

“In the absence of social awareness and appreciation of the scientiﬁc objectivity among sufficiently large number of civil servants or political leaders, the need of validity has not yet been accepted in the ofﬁcial tatistical system in India. Ofcial statistics in India is treated as an integral part of the dministrative system which is regulated by the principle of authority. Approval of statistical estimates at a high level of authority is accepted as a bstitnte for validity in many ases there is continuing opposition to independent cross-hccks for the validity of the data. Ofﬁcials have the feeling that two independent estimates, which might differ would be confusing and, in fact unthinkable; therefore independent cross-checks in statistics should be eliminated.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

Quote, Professor P.C. Mahalanobis and the Development of Population Statistics in lndia

Feeling , Parting

“It would be, however, a fatal mistake to establish an expensive system of education on the model of the advanced countries which would have little relevance to local needs and would be beyond the means of the national economy. It is necessary to evolve a system, through experimentation and trial and success, which would be within the means of the national economy.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

Quote, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in Vigyanprasar

Education , Success , Country

“The spirit and outlook of 'Sankhya' will be universal, but its form and content must necessarily be, to some extent, regional. We shall keep the special needs of India in view without, however, restricting the scope of the journal in any way. We shall naturally devote closer attention to the collection and analysis of data relating to India, but we shall try to study all Indian questions in relation to world problems…. The study of modern statistical methods in its infancy in our country, and we do not expect to be able to achieve immediate results. We shall be satisfied if we can help by our humble efforts to lay the foundations for future work.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

His editorial in his Journal the Sankhya cited in Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, 14 December 2013, School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Mahalanobis.html,
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World , Way , Question , Nature

“In India, there's lack of appreciation of the need to cross-examine data, the responsibility of a statistician.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

In Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,
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“I need hardly say that I refer to the emergence of a statistically competent technique of Sample Survey, with which I believe Professor Mahalanobis name will always be associated.”

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

Sir Ronald Fisher in "Professor P.C. Mahalanobis and the Development of Population Statistics in India"