Annual Report 2019-20
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88th Annual Report 2019-20 Indian Statistical Institute 203, Barrackpore Trunk Road, Kolkata - 700108 http://www.isical.ac.in Indian Statistical Institute From the Director’s Desk I am delighted to present before you the Annual Report 2019-20 of the Indian Statistical Institute. Established by P.C. Mahalanobis in 1931 in Kolkata, the Institute has now grown into a unique seat of higher learning with a pan India presence. The vision of Mahalanobis was to establish Statistics as a unifying force between different disciplines. The Institute continues to nurture this vision; that is all the more relevant today with the ever-expanding role of data for scientific advancement, and with interdisciplinarity being the norm rather than the exception. True to this vision, the Institute scientists lay emphasis on both deep theoretical studies and advanced applications. The Institute scientists also extend their expertise to the government in various capacities, in policy formulation, policy evaluation and intervention, and capacity building. The year 2019-20 saw the Institute continue to flourish under the able leadership and guidance of the Institute President Shri Bibek Debroy and the Chairman of the ISI Council, Professor Goverdhan Mehta. The Institute conducted its 54th Convocation on 23rd January 2020. Prof. Joachim Frank, Professor at Columbia University, New York, and a Nobel Laureate, was the Chief Guest of the event, and delivered a mesmerizing Convocation speech. The Institute was delighted and honored to felicitate Shri Pranab Mukherjee, former President of India and former Chairman of ISI Council from 2004 to 2012, on his receiving the Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honor of the country. Shri Mukherjee enthralled the audience with his reminiscences and erudite speech. A photo album capturing the special moments of his association with the Institute was released on this occasion. The Institute welcomed a large number of distinguished visitors to its different campuses both from India and abroad. International Women’s Day is being celebrated in the Institute for a few years now. In March 2020, Smt Alokananda Ray, famous danseuse who has been using dance to change the lives of convicts, visited the Headquarter in Kolkata and shared her experiences with the members of the Institute. A photography contest was organized on this occasion. Several conferences and workshops were organized throughout the year in the various scientific divisions across the 2 Annual Report 2019-20 From the Director’s Desk At ISI, we have also risen to the occasion by helping the government “ with the expertise that is available in the Institute, by conducting research on covid-19 related areas, providing local technical support in covid-19 testing and through community service. “ different locations of the Institute. Faculty members initiated the Young Statisticians Meet: Data Science in Action, which is likely to be the first of a series targeting PhD and master’s students in Statistics, creating a platform to expose them to current data driven problems from the academia and the industry. The recently formed Center for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning conducted its first short term course on Machine Learning for Practitioners in November 2019 and followed it up with an Indo-French Joint workshop on Statistical and Artificial Intelligence for Data Science in January 2020 which saw, among other things, seven speakers from France deliver lectures here. The Centre for research on the Economics of Climate, Food, Energy and Environment (CECFEE), ISI Delhi is a part of the Environment for Development (EfD) Network and is receiving financial support for conducting environment related studies. The Regional Math Olympiad examination and the Indian National Mathematical Olympiad Training Camp (INMO) training camp were conducted in ISI Bangalore. The Library, Documentation and Information Sciences Division in collaboration with Physics and Applied Mathematics Unit conducted the extremely well received program called the Astro-scope for the Youngsters: A Space Odyssey. The Institute hosted many such activities as detailed in a section of the Annual Report. The Institute faculty and students continue to be recognized for their scientific contributions. Neena Gupta received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize in Mathematical Sciences 2019, becoming the youngest mathematician to win in this category. Former Director and Head, RC Bose Centre of Cryptology and Security, Bimal K.Roy was appointed Chairman of the National Statistical Commission. Ritabrata Munshi has been elected Fellow of the Indian National Sciences Academy. Rajat Shubhra Hazra has been elected Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. Ashish Ghosh has been elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, India and has also received the IEEE-GRSS 2019 Regional Leader Award. Abhiroop Mukhopadhyay has received Mahalanobis Memorial Medal (National Award for 2018). Arup Bose has been appointed as a member of the West Bengal State Council of Science and Technology. Abhik Ghosh has been selected for the NASI Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award 2019 in the field of Earth Science, Mathematics and Physics; Kiranmoy Das has been selected as an Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore. The International Indian Statistical Association (IISA) selected Rituparna Sen for the Young Statistical Scientist Award (YSSA) in the “Application“ category. Saurabh Ghosh and Banasri Basu have been elected as Fellows of West Bengal Academy of Sciences and Technology for the year 2019. Partha P. Majumder, Emeritus Professor of the Institute has been selected as a President of the Indian Academy of Sciences for the term 2019-2021. K.B. Sinha, Former Director and Emeritus Professor of the Institute, has received the Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal, 2019, from INSA. Our Senior Research Fellow Abhijit Patra, working under the Supervision of Dr. Dilip Saha has received the best poster award at Rock Deformation related Conference in Switzerland while another senior research fellow Ankita Mandal, working under the supervision of Pradipta Maji, has received the 1st prize in the 9th IDRBT Doctoral Colloquium (2019). Sujata Ghosh has been elected a Jury Member of E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize, 2019. The 2019 Simon Marais Mathematics Competition for undergraduates in Asia-Pacific region saw a number of ISI students being placed in the top quartile. In particular Shrivathsa Pandelu from ISI Bangalore stood 7th in the individual category, the highest position obtained from India. From ISI Kolkata two have been selected for the Stonehage Fleming /Marais Prizes in the individual category, and a pair of students has been selected for the same prize in the pairs category. Our former M. Stat student of 2014, Souvik Dhara has been awarded Stieltjes Prize for Best PhD Thesis of 2018 in Netherlands. The Institute is proud of all of them. Annual Report 2019-20 3 Indian Statistical Institute The regular academic degree programs of the Institute are going strong as usual. The post graduate diploma in statistical methods and applications that was started in the North-East Centre of the Institute in Tezpur has now been initiated in the Chennai Centre of the Institute as well. The North-East Centre of ISI moved to its new campus in June 2019. The second Six Sigma program has been conducted in the Giridih branch under the guidance of colleagues from SQC&OR division. The third batch of students of the two-year Post Graduate Diploma in Business Analytics course, conducted jointly with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta and Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, have graduated in 2019, and have been very well placed. This program has been ranked at fourteenth position in the QS World University Ranking 2019 in the domain of Masters in Business Analytics. The Statistical Training Diploma, serving officials and students from different countries, is also running successfully in ISEC. The Cell for Collaboration with Academia, Industry and R&D labs has been active in handling the externally funded projects and consultancy activities in the Institute. MoUs have been signed/extended between ISI and several other organizations from the government, industry and academia. Apart from these, the Institute is working very closely with the Government of India and various state governments for solving social problems and for improvement of services being offered by the government, in addition to conducting a large number of training programs for government officials. The different Units of the SQC&OR division continue offering their expertise for training personnel from the industry towards developing up-to-date quality management systems and helping solve critical problems of quality, reliability and productivity. Further details are provided in a section of this Annual Report. Towards the end of this financial year, we realized the devastation that a virus can wreak on this entire world challenging each and everyone, especially the scientists. At ISI, we have also risen to the occasion by helping the government with the expertise that is available in the Institute, by conducting research on covid-19 related areas, providing local technical support in covid-19 testing and through community service. I remain grateful to the President of the Institute, Shri Bibek Debroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council of the Institute, Prof. Goverdhan Mehta, FRS, University Distinguished Professor