The National Statistics Day, celebrated every year on June 29 to mark the birth anniversary of renowned statistician Prof. P.C. Mahalanobis, was celebrated by Sri Venkateswara University’s (SVU) Department of Statistics, here on Wednesday.
Recollecting the contributions of Prof. Mahalanobis, SVU Vice-Chancellor A. Damodaram urged the faculty, research scholars and students to transform the varsity’s Statistics Department into a more vibrant one. “We will be starting a course on cyber defence, in the next three months, and those from statistics and mathematics background are eligible to take part,” he added.
Prof. Damodaram said they would dedicate a separate school of excellence for statistics, in the upcoming International Institute of Digital Technology at the varsity. He also urged the faculty, research scholars and students to contribute their part to statistics and keep up with the changes as the courses transform from traditional to dynamic oriented syllabi.
Link between statistics and genetics
IISc Professor (Computer Science) Vijay Chandru, who presided over the event, spoke on the reason behind several physicists turning into great statisticians, including Prof. Mahalanobis, and gave an overview of the link between statistics and genetics. He urged the students to ‘move sideways’ from their core field to expand their horizons. SVU’s Dean Faculty of Science Prof. K.V.S. Sarma spoke on the contributions of Prof. Mahalanobis as a statistical advisor to the Indian government. “He noticed gaps in the official statistics and promoted the quality of data to influence policy decisions,” Prof. Sarma said.
Sri Venkateswara University to dedicate a school of excellence for statistics
