University of Calcutta

History

Year of Establishment : 1941

History of the department : The postgraduate Department of Statistics started functioning from July, 1941 with Prof. P.C.  Mahalanobis as the Head of the Department and Profs. R.C. Bose and S.N. Roy as regular faculty members. Housed in the College Street campus of the University and having a bare minimum of physical facilities, it became the first full-fledged department in Asia offering a post-graduate degree in Statistics.

Among six students of the first batch who completed their post-graduation from the Department were Prof. H.K. Nandi and Prof. C.R. Rao, the two illustrious sons of the Department, who were destined to become leading researchers in statistics in the coming decades. From this inception the Department set a very high standard of teaching and research. Illustrious teachers and researchers like Professors P.K. Bose, H.K. Nandi, A. Bhattacharya, B.N. Ghosh, M.N. Ghosh, C.R. Rao and K.R. Nair figured in the list of faculty members in the first decade of its existence. Fundamental contributions to different fields of Statistics made by them during this period earned a tremendous reputation for the Department as a breeding ground of top quality statisticians.

The Department is still considered to be one of the best Statistics Department in the country in terms of its research output, curriculum, teaching and student quality. Its curricula serve as models to the other universities. It is the first department in the country to design two new courses a few years back viz. ‘statistics for development’ and ‘evolution of statistical concepts’ and later these were introduced  in the M.Sc. syllabus. The students of the department have been consistently doing well in the Indian Statistical Service Examination conducted by UPSC and Ph.D. entrance tests like NET, GATE.

The Department had switched its M.Sc. course from the annual to the semester system from the academic session 2010–2011. A review of the syllabus was made in 2012-2013 (after 3 years) and a new syllabus introduced from the 2013-2014 session. Currently the number of elective papers offered in the 3rd semester is 3 while a module of special modules consisting of 3 papers are offered in the 4th semester. In accordance with the thrust area, the elective papers offered are as varied as Analysis, Probability Theory, Bayesian Analysis, Operation Research, Econometrics, Demography, Development Statistics and Advanced Sample Survey while the special modules offered include Statistical Inference, Biostatistics, Industrial Statistics, Economic Statistics, Astrostatistics and Advanced Design of Experiments.

The strength of the Department, however, lies in its continual search for excellence and for its endeavour to adapt itself to the changing scenario of Statistics as a subject and to keep abreast with the best in the emerging fields.

Special award/ recognition from UGC or related statutory body: