Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis
Encyclopedia
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis FRS (29 June 1893 – 28 June 1972) was an India
n scientist and applied statistician
. He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance
, a statistical measure. He made pioneering studies in anthropometry
in India. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute
, and contributed to the design of large scale sample surveys.
(now in Bangladesh
). His grandfather Gurucharan (1833–1916) moved to Calcutta in 1854 and built up a business, starting a chemist shop in 1860. Gurucharan was influenced by Debendranath Tagore
(1817–1905), father of the Nobel poet, Rabindranath Tagore
. Gurucharan was actively involved in social movements such as the Brahmo Samaj
, acting as its Treasurer and President. His house on 210 Cornwallis Street was the center of the Brahmo Samaj. Gurucharan married a widow against social traditions. His elder son Subodhchandra (1867–1954) was the father of P. C. Mahalanobis. He was a distinguished educationist who studied physiology at Edinburgh University and later became a Professor at the Presidency College
became head of the department of Physiology. Subodhchandra also became a member of the Senate of the Calcutta University. Born in the house at 210 Cornwallis Street, P. C. Mahalanobis, grew up in a socially active family surrounded by intellectuals and reformers.
Mahalanobis received his early schooling at the Brahmo Boys School in Calcutta graduating in 1908. He then joined the Presidency College, Calcutta and received a B.Sc.
degree with honours in physics in 1912. He left for England in 1913 to join Cambridge. He however missed a train and stayed with a friend at King's College, Cambridge
. He was impressed by the Chapel there and his host's friend M. A. Candeth suggested that he could try joining there, which he did. He did well in his studies, but also took an interest in cross-country walking and punting on the river. He interacted with the mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan
during the latter's time at Cambridge. After his Tripos
in physics, Mahalanobis worked with C. T. R. Wilson at the Cavendish Laboratory
. He took a short break and went to India and here he was introduced to the Principal of Presidency College and was invited to take classes in physics.
He went back to England and was introduced to the journal Biometrika
. This interested him so much that he bought a complete set and took them to India. He discovered the utility of statistics to problems in meteorology
, anthropology
and began working on it on his journey back to India.
In Calcutta, Mahalanobis met Nirmalkumari, daughter of Herambhachandra Maitra, a leading educationist and member of the Brahmo Samaj. They married on 27 February 1923 although her father did not completely approve of it. The contention was partly due to Mahalanobis' opposition of various clauses in the membership of the student wing of the Brahmo Samaj, including restraining members from drinking and smoking. Sir Nilratan Sircar, P. C. Mahalanobis' uncle took part in the wedding ceremony in place of the father of the bride.
Many colleagues of Mahalanobis took an interest in statistics and the group grew in the Statistical Laboratory located in his room at the Presidency College, Calcutta. A meeting was called on the 17 December 1931 with Pramatha Nath Banerji (Minto Professor of Economics), Nikhil Ranjan Sen (Khaira Professor of Applied Mathematics) and Sir R. N. Mukherji. The meeting led to the establishment of the Indian Statistical Institute
(ISI), and formally registered on 28 April 1932 as a non-profit distributing learned society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
The Institute was initially in the Physics Department of the Presidency College and the expenditure in the first year was Rs. 238. It gradually grew with the pioneering work of a group of his colleagues including S. S. Bose, J. M. Sengupta, R. C. Bose, S. N. Roy
, K. R. Nair, R. R. Bahadur, G. Kallianpur, D. B. Lahiri and C. R. Rao
. The institute also gained major assistance through Pitamber Pant, who was a secretary to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
. Pant was trained in statistics at the Institute and took a keen interest in the institute.
In 1933, the journal Sankhya was founded along the lines of Karl Pearson
's Biometrika.
The Institute started a training section in 1938. Many of the early workers left the ISI for careers in the USA and with the government of India. Mahalanobis invited J. B. S. Haldane
to join him at the ISI and Haldane joined as a Research Professor from August 1957 and stayed on until February 1961. He resigned from the ISI due to frustrations with the administration and disagreements with Mahalanobis' policies. He was also very concerned with the frequent travels and absence of the director and wrote The journeyings of our Director define a novel random vector. Haldane however helped the ISI grow in biometrics.
In 1959 the Institute was declared as an Institute of national importance and a deemed university
.
, then the director of the Zoological Survey of India
, at the 1920 Nagpur session of the Indian Science Congress led to a problem in anthropology. Annandale asked him to analyse anthropometric measurements of Anglo-Indians in Calcutta and this led to his first scientific paper in 1922. During the course of these studies he found a way of comparing and grouping populations using a multivariate distance measure. This measure, D2, which is now named after him as Mahalanobis distance
, is independent of measurement scale.
Inspired by Biometrika
and mentored by Acharya Brajendra Nath Seal
he started his statistical work. Initially he worked on analyzing university exam results, anthropometric measurements on Anglo-Indian
s of Calcutta and some meteorological problems. He also worked as a meteorologist for some time. In 1924, when he was working on the probable error
of results of agricultural experiments, he met Ronald Fisher
, with whom he established a life-long friendship. He also worked on schemes to prevent floods.
methods. Early surveys began between 1937 to 1944 and included topics such as consumer expenditure, tea-drinking habits, public opinion, crop acreage and plant disease. Harold Hotelling
wrote: "No technique of random sample has, so far as I can find, been developed in the United States or elsewhere, which can compare in accuracy with that described by Professor Mahalanobis" and Sir R. A. Fisher commented that "The I.S.I. has taken the lead in the original development of the technique of sample surveys, the most potent fact finding process available to the administration".
He introduced a method for estimating crop yields which involved statisticians sampling in the fields by cutting crops in a circle of diameter 4 feet. Others such as P. V. Sukhatme and V. G. Panse who began to work on crop surveys with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
and the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute
suggested that a survey system should make use of the existing administrative framework. The differences in opinion led to acrimony and there was little interaction between Mahalanobis and agricultural research in later years.
's Input-output model
, the Mahalanobis model
, was employed in the Second Five Year Plan, which worked towards the rapid industrialization of India and with other colleagues at his institute, he played a key role in the development of a statistical infrastructure. He encouraged a project to assess de-industrialization in India and correct some previous census methodology errors and entrusted this project to Daniel Thorner
.
Mahalanobis also had an abiding interest in cultural pursuits and served as secretary to Rabindranath Tagore
, particularly during the latter's foreign travels, and also worked at his Visva-Bharati University
, for some time. He received one of the highest civilian awards, the Padma Vibhushan
from the Government of India
for his contribution to science and services to the country.
Mahalanobis died on 28 June 1972, a day before his seventy-ninth birthday. Even at this age, he was still active doing research work and discharging his duties as the Secretary and Director of the Indian Statistical Institute
and as the Honorary Statistical Advisor to the Cabinet of the Government of India.
The government of India decided in 2006 to celebrate his birthday, 29 June, as National Statistical Day.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n scientist and applied statistician
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
. He is best remembered for the Mahalanobis distance
Mahalanobis distance
In statistics, Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. It is based on correlations between variables by which different patterns can be identified and analyzed. It gauges similarity of an unknown sample set to a known one. It differs from Euclidean...
, a statistical measure. He made pioneering studies in anthropometry
Anthropometry
Anthropometry refers to the measurement of the human individual...
in India. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute is a public research institute and university in Kolkata's northern outskirt of Baranagar, India founded by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1931...
, and contributed to the design of large scale sample surveys.
Early life
Mahalanobis belonged to a family of Bengali landed gentry who lived in BikrampurBikrampur
Bikrampur pargana is situated 12 miles south of Dhaka, the modern-day capital of Bangladesh. It lies in the Munshiganj District of Bangladesh. It is a historic region in Bengal. The region is famous for its early Buddhist scholarships and in the later period for its cultural influences...
(now in Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
). His grandfather Gurucharan (1833–1916) moved to Calcutta in 1854 and built up a business, starting a chemist shop in 1860. Gurucharan was influenced by Debendranath Tagore
Debendranath Tagore
Debendranath Tagore was one of the founders in 1848 of the Brahmo Religion which today is synonymous with Brahmoism the youngest religion of India and Bangladesh....
(1817–1905), father of the Nobel poet, Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
. Gurucharan was actively involved in social movements such as the Brahmo Samaj
Brahmo Samaj
Brahmo Samaj is the societal component of the Brahmo religion which is mainly practiced today as the Adi Dharm after its eclipse in Bengal consequent to the exit of the Tattwabodini Sabha from its ranks in 1859. It was one of the most influential religious movements responsible for the making of...
, acting as its Treasurer and President. His house on 210 Cornwallis Street was the center of the Brahmo Samaj. Gurucharan married a widow against social traditions. His elder son Subodhchandra (1867–1954) was the father of P. C. Mahalanobis. He was a distinguished educationist who studied physiology at Edinburgh University and later became a Professor at the Presidency College
Presidency College, Kolkata
Presidency University, Kolkata, formerly Hindu College and Presidency College, is a unitary, state aided university, located in Kolkata, West Bengal. and one of the premier institutes of learning of liberal arts and sciences in India. In 2002 it was ranked number one by the weekly news magazine...
became head of the department of Physiology. Subodhchandra also became a member of the Senate of the Calcutta University. Born in the house at 210 Cornwallis Street, P. C. Mahalanobis, grew up in a socially active family surrounded by intellectuals and reformers.
Mahalanobis received his early schooling at the Brahmo Boys School in Calcutta graduating in 1908. He then joined the Presidency College, Calcutta and received a B.Sc.
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
degree with honours in physics in 1912. He left for England in 1913 to join Cambridge. He however missed a train and stayed with a friend at King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
. He was impressed by the Chapel there and his host's friend M. A. Candeth suggested that he could try joining there, which he did. He did well in his studies, but also took an interest in cross-country walking and punting on the river. He interacted with the mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Srīnivāsa Aiyangār Rāmānujan FRS, better known as Srinivasa Iyengar Ramanujan was a Indian mathematician and autodidact who, with almost no formal training in pure mathematics, made extraordinary contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions...
during the latter's time at Cambridge. After his Tripos
Tripos
The University of Cambridge, England, divides the different kinds of honours bachelor's degree by Tripos , plural Triposes. The word has an obscure etymology, but may be traced to the three-legged stool candidates once used to sit on when taking oral examinations...
in physics, Mahalanobis worked with C. T. R. Wilson at the Cavendish Laboratory
Cavendish Laboratory
The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the university's School of Physical Sciences. It was opened in 1874 as a teaching laboratory....
. He took a short break and went to India and here he was introduced to the Principal of Presidency College and was invited to take classes in physics.
He went back to England and was introduced to the journal Biometrika
Biometrika
- External links :* . The Internet Archive. 2011....
. This interested him so much that he bought a complete set and took them to India. He discovered the utility of statistics to problems in meteorology
Meteorology
Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries...
, anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and began working on it on his journey back to India.
In Calcutta, Mahalanobis met Nirmalkumari, daughter of Herambhachandra Maitra, a leading educationist and member of the Brahmo Samaj. They married on 27 February 1923 although her father did not completely approve of it. The contention was partly due to Mahalanobis' opposition of various clauses in the membership of the student wing of the Brahmo Samaj, including restraining members from drinking and smoking. Sir Nilratan Sircar, P. C. Mahalanobis' uncle took part in the wedding ceremony in place of the father of the bride.
The Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute is a public research institute and university in Kolkata's northern outskirt of Baranagar, India founded by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1931...
(ISI), and formally registered on 28 April 1932 as a non-profit distributing learned society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860.
The Institute was initially in the Physics Department of the Presidency College and the expenditure in the first year was Rs. 238. It gradually grew with the pioneering work of a group of his colleagues including S. S. Bose, J. M. Sengupta, R. C. Bose, S. N. Roy
S. N. Roy
Samarendra Nath Roy or S. N. Roy was an Indian-born American mathematician and an applied statistician. He was the first of two children of Kali Nath Roy and Suniti Bala Roy. His father, Kali Nath Roy was a freedom fighter and the Chief Editor of the newspaper TRIBUNE.Prof. Roy had a brilliant...
, K. R. Nair, R. R. Bahadur, G. Kallianpur, D. B. Lahiri and C. R. Rao
C. R. Rao
Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao FRS known as C R Rao is an Indian statistician. He is currently professor emeritus at Penn State University and Research Professor at the University at Buffalo. Rao has been honored by numerous colloquia, honorary degrees, and festschrifts and was awarded the US...
. The institute also gained major assistance through Pitamber Pant, who was a secretary to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
. Pant was trained in statistics at the Institute and took a keen interest in the institute.
In 1933, the journal Sankhya was founded along the lines of Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson FRS was an influential English mathematician who has been credited for establishing the disciplineof mathematical statistics....
's Biometrika.
The Institute started a training section in 1938. Many of the early workers left the ISI for careers in the USA and with the government of India. Mahalanobis invited J. B. S. Haldane
J. B. S. Haldane
John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...
to join him at the ISI and Haldane joined as a Research Professor from August 1957 and stayed on until February 1961. He resigned from the ISI due to frustrations with the administration and disagreements with Mahalanobis' policies. He was also very concerned with the frequent travels and absence of the director and wrote The journeyings of our Director define a novel random vector. Haldane however helped the ISI grow in biometrics.
In 1959 the Institute was declared as an Institute of national importance and a deemed university
Deemed University
Deemed university is a status of autonomy granted to high performing institutes and departments of various universities in India. This status of ‘Deemed-to-be-University’, is granted by Department of Higher Education, Union Human Resource Development Ministry, on the advice of the University Grants...
.
Mahalanobis distance
A chance meeting with Nelson AnnandaleNelson Annandale
Thomas Nelson Annandale CIE was a Scottish zoologist, entomologist and anthropologist.The eldest son of Thomas Annandale, the regius professor of clinical surgery at the University of Edinburgh, Nelson was educated at Rugby School, Balliol College, Oxford, and the University of Edinburgh.Annandale...
, then the director of the Zoological Survey of India
Zoological Survey of India
The Zoological Survey of India is a premier Indian organisation in zoological research and studies. It was established on 1 July 1916 to promote the survey, exploration and research of the fauna in the region...
, at the 1920 Nagpur session of the Indian Science Congress led to a problem in anthropology. Annandale asked him to analyse anthropometric measurements of Anglo-Indians in Calcutta and this led to his first scientific paper in 1922. During the course of these studies he found a way of comparing and grouping populations using a multivariate distance measure. This measure, D2, which is now named after him as Mahalanobis distance
Mahalanobis distance
In statistics, Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. It is based on correlations between variables by which different patterns can be identified and analyzed. It gauges similarity of an unknown sample set to a known one. It differs from Euclidean...
, is independent of measurement scale.
Inspired by Biometrika
Biometrika
- External links :* . The Internet Archive. 2011....
and mentored by Acharya Brajendra Nath Seal
Brajendra Nath Seal
Sir Brajendra Nath Seal KCIE was a renowned Bengali Indian humanist philosopher. He was one of the greatest original thinkers of the Brahmo Samaj and did work in comparative religion and on the philosophy of science. He systematized the humanism of the Brahmo philosophical thought...
he started his statistical work. Initially he worked on analyzing university exam results, anthropometric measurements on Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indians are people who have mixed Indian and British ancestry, or people of British descent born or living in India, now mainly historical in the latter sense. British residents in India used the term "Eurasians" for people of mixed European and Indian descent...
s of Calcutta and some meteorological problems. He also worked as a meteorologist for some time. In 1924, when he was working on the probable error
Probable error
-Statistics:In statistics, the probable error of a quantity is a value describing the probability distribution of that quantity. It defines the half-range of an interval about a cental point for the distribution, such that half of the values from the distribution will lie within the interval and...
of results of agricultural experiments, he met Ronald Fisher
Ronald Fisher
Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...
, with whom he established a life-long friendship. He also worked on schemes to prevent floods.
Sample surveys
His most important contributions are related to large scale sample surveys. He introduced the concept of pilot surveys and advocated the usefulness of samplingSampling (statistics)
In statistics and survey methodology, sampling is concerned with the selection of a subset of individuals from within a population to estimate characteristics of the whole population....
methods. Early surveys began between 1937 to 1944 and included topics such as consumer expenditure, tea-drinking habits, public opinion, crop acreage and plant disease. Harold Hotelling
Harold Hotelling
Harold Hotelling was a mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist.He was Associate Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University from 1927 until 1931, a member of the faculty of Columbia University from 1931 until 1946, and a Professor of Mathematical Statistics at the...
wrote: "No technique of random sample has, so far as I can find, been developed in the United States or elsewhere, which can compare in accuracy with that described by Professor Mahalanobis" and Sir R. A. Fisher commented that "The I.S.I. has taken the lead in the original development of the technique of sample surveys, the most potent fact finding process available to the administration".
He introduced a method for estimating crop yields which involved statisticians sampling in the fields by cutting crops in a circle of diameter 4 feet. Others such as P. V. Sukhatme and V. G. Panse who began to work on crop surveys with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
Indian Council of Agricultural Research
Indian Council of Agricultural Research , New Delhi, India is an autonomous organisation under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India...
and the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute
Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute
The Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute is an institute under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research with the mandate for developing new techniques for the design of agricultural experiments as well as to analyze data in agriculture....
suggested that a survey system should make use of the existing administrative framework. The differences in opinion led to acrimony and there was little interaction between Mahalanobis and agricultural research in later years.
Later life
In later life, Mahalanobis was a member of the planning commission contributed prominently to newly independent India's five-year plans starting from the second. In the second five-year plan he emphasised industrialization on the basis of a two-sector model. His variant of Wassily LeontiefWassily Leontief
Wassily Wassilyovich Leontief , was a Russian-American economist notable for his research on how changes in one economic sector may have an effect on other sectors. Leontief won the Nobel Committee's Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1973, and three of his doctoral students have also...
's Input-output model
Input-output model
In economics, an input-output model is a quantitative economic technique that represents the interdependencies between different branches of national economy or between branches of different, even competing economies. Wassily Leontief developed this type of analysis and took the Nobel Memorial...
, the Mahalanobis model
Mahalanobis model
The Mahalanobis model is a model of economic development, created by Indian statistician Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1953. Mahalanobis became essentially the key economist of India's Second Five Year Plan, becoming subject to much of India's most dramatic economic debates.-The...
, was employed in the Second Five Year Plan, which worked towards the rapid industrialization of India and with other colleagues at his institute, he played a key role in the development of a statistical infrastructure. He encouraged a project to assess de-industrialization in India and correct some previous census methodology errors and entrusted this project to Daniel Thorner
Daniel Thorner
Daniel Thorner was an American-born economist known for his work on agricultural economics and Indian economic history. He is known for the application of historical and contemporary economic analysis on policy and influenced agricultural policy in India in the 1950s through his association with...
.
Mahalanobis also had an abiding interest in cultural pursuits and served as secretary to Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, particularly during the latter's foreign travels, and also worked at his Visva-Bharati University
Visva-Bharati University
Visva Bharati University is a Central University for research and teaching in India, located in the twin towns of Santiniketan and Sriniketan in the Indian state of West Bengal. It was founded by Rabindranath Tagore who called it Visva Bharati, which means the communion of the world with India...
, for some time. He received one of the highest civilian awards, the Padma Vibhushan
Padma Vibhushan
The Padma Vibhushan is the second highest civilian award in the Republic of India. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It was established on 2 January 1954. It ranks behind the Bharat Ratna and comes before the Padma Bhushan...
from the Government of India
Government of India
The Government of India, officially known as the Union Government, and also known as the Central Government, was established by the Constitution of India, and is the governing authority of the union of 28 states and seven union territories, collectively called the Republic of India...
for his contribution to science and services to the country.
Mahalanobis died on 28 June 1972, a day before his seventy-ninth birthday. Even at this age, he was still active doing research work and discharging his duties as the Secretary and Director of the Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute
Indian Statistical Institute is a public research institute and university in Kolkata's northern outskirt of Baranagar, India founded by Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis in 1931...
and as the Honorary Statistical Advisor to the Cabinet of the Government of India.
Honours
- Weldon Medal from Oxford University (1944)
- Fellow of the Royal SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
, London (1945) - President of Indian Science Congress (1950)
- Fellow of the Econometric SocietyEconometric SocietyThe Econometric Society is an international society for the advancement of economic theory in its relation with statistics and mathematics. It was founded on December 29, 1930 at the Stalton Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio....
, U.S.A. (1951) - Fellow of the Pakistan Statistical Association (1952)
- Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical SocietyRoyal Statistical SocietyThe Royal Statistical Society is a learned society for statistics and a professional body for statisticians in the UK.-History:It was founded in 1834 as the Statistical Society of London , though a perhaps unrelated London Statistical Society was in existence at least as early as 1824...
, U.K. (1954) - Sir Deviprasad Sarvadhikari Gold Medal (1957)
- Foreign member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1958)
- Honorary Fellow of King's College, CambridgeKing's College, CambridgeKing's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
(1959) - Fellow of the American Statistical AssociationAmerican Statistical AssociationThe American Statistical Association , is the main professional US organization for statisticians and related professions. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest, continuously operating professional society in the United States...
(1961) - Durgaprasad Khaitan Gold Medal (1961)
- Padma VibhushanPadma VibhushanThe Padma Vibhushan is the second highest civilian award in the Republic of India. It consists of a medal and a citation and is awarded by the President of India. It was established on 2 January 1954. It ranks behind the Bharat Ratna and comes before the Padma Bhushan...
(1968) - Srinivasa Ramanujam Gold Medal (1968)
The government of India decided in 2006 to celebrate his birthday, 29 June, as National Statistical Day.