Page 631 - Probability and Statistical Inference

608 14. Appendix

adds glory even to the flower Lotus. During the centennial year 1993, the
Government of India issued a postage stamp with Mahalanobis’s picture on
it. This is how the masses of India celebrated statistics and quantitative
literacy!
Mahalanobis became President (1950) of the Indian Science Congress.
Many other academies from India and all over the world bestowed honors
upon him, including the Fellowship of the Royal Society, the Foreign Mem-
bership of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, and the Statistical Advisor to
the Cabinet of Indian Government since 1949, Gold Medal from the Czecho-
slovak Academy of Sciences. He received a number of honorary degrees
including a Honorary Ph.D. (1956) from the University of Calcutta and the
Deshikottama (Honorary D.Litt., 1961) from Visva Bharati, the University
founded by Tagore, the Indian poet and Nobel Laureate.
Mahalanobis was instrumental in opening up the continuous flow of scien-
tific exchanges and visits, particularly with U.S.A. and many East European
Countries. He was able to create a vigorous statistical infrastructure in India
at all imaginable levels. He was a true ambassador of statistical science.
Additional details can be found in a series of commemorative articles which
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appeared in Sankhya;, Series A and B, 1973. The published interviews of Rao
[DeGroot (1987)] and Mitra [Mukhopadhyay (1997)] as well as the essays
written by Rao (1992b) and Hansen (1987) would be very informative. One
may also look at the entry [Rao (1968)] on P. C. Mahalanobis in the Interna-
tional Encyclopedia of Statistics. The recent article of Ghosh et al. (1999)
also gives many historical details on Mahalanobis’s contributions.
In June, 1972, Mahalanobis was hospitalized for some surgery. He was
recovering well. On June 27, like every other day, from his hospital bed he
cleared some files and wrote letters. He gave dictations on some policy mat-
ters regarding the Institute’s affairs and its future. Perhaps he felt that the end
was near&exl; This superbly powerful, dynamic and productive visionary’s
life came to a halt in Calcutta on June 28, 1972, exactly one day shy of his
79 birthday.
th
J. Neyman: Jerzy Neyman was born on April 16, 1894 in Bendery, Rus-
sia. His parents were Polish. He received early education from governesses,
alternately French and German, and this helped in his proficiency in several
languages. When he was twelve, his father passed away and his family moved,
ultimately settling in Kharkov.
Neyman entered University of Kharkov in 1912 to study physics and
mathematics. S. N. Bernstein, a Russian probabilist, was among his teach-
ers. Bernstein mentioned Karl Pearson’s (1892) monograph, Grammar of