CHENNAI: Prof Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar, professor emeritus at Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI), has been appointed as part-time chairperson of National Statistical Commission of India (NSCI) for three years.
Prof Karandikar, who joined CMI as a visiting professor in 2010 and was its director from January 2011 to April 2021, told TNIE that he would try to modernise the statistics system of the union government. He said delays in decoding data collected from national surveys impacted decision making.
“While India has been a pioneer in developing statistical techniques and its use for long, we need to adapt to the changing world, where statistics is increasingly playing a larger role in all walks of life, be it business, finance, medicine, environment, among others, leading to massive job opportunities in data science, analytics and AI.
In this context, it’s imperative that we transform the government machinery to lead the country from the front.” NSCI is an autonomous body formed in June 2005 following a recommendation by Dr C Rangarajan Commission.