Prasantachandra Mahalanobis (1833 -1972)

A renowned statistician, Prasantachandra Mahalanobis did his Tripos in Mathematics and Physics from Cambridge University. He joined the Indian Educational Service and started teaching Physics at the Presidency College. He founded the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta in 1931 and in 1933, Sankhya: The Indian Journal of Statistics. He was actively involved in post-independence government planning.

Prasantachandra was a close associate of Rabindranath. Rabindranath often chose Prasantachandra and his wife, Nirmalkumari (Rani) as his travel companions. In 1921 Prasantachandra framed the constitution of Visva-Bharati and from 1921 to 1932, he was general secretary of Visva-Bharati.