Professor Arijit Chaudhuri (1940) has a Ph.D, M.A. and B.A. (Statistics) from Calcutta University(CU), was Lecturer in Statistics in Presidency College (1963-68) and CU (1968-77) and Associate Professor in Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) (1977-1981), a Professor at ISI (1982-2002) and Honorary Visiting Professor there since then including a position as CSIR Emeritus Scientist at ISI (2002-2005). He still regularly teaches B.Stat and M.Stat courses at ISI.Internationally he was a Post-Doc fellow at Sydney University (1973-75), a Visiting Professor (1989-1990) at Virginia Tech, Nebraska-Lincoln University (1997), Delft University (1985). Ha also worked on scientific assignments in Ottawa, Waterloo, Mannheim, Utrecht, Lund, Umea, Stockholm, Southampton, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Havana, Istanbul, Chiba, Durban (universities & Statistical Offices) intermittently over 1979-2009.He has successfully guided 10 Ph.D. students.He has published 10 books/monographs: Network & adaptive Sampling (2014) CRC PressModern Survey Sampling (2014) CRC PressIndirect Questioning in sample surveys (with TC Christofides)(2013), Springer VerlagRandomized Response and Indirect Questioningtechniques in surveys (2011),CRC PressEssentials of Survey Sampling (2010), Prentice Hall of IndiaSurvey Sampling Theory & Methods (with H.Stenger) ( 1st edition, 1992,Marcel Dekker)2nd revised and enhanced edition, 2005, CRC PressRandomized response theory & Techniques (1988) (with Rahul Mukerjee),Marcel DekkerUnified Theory and Strategies of Survey Sampling (1988)(with late JWE Vos), North Holland (Elsevier)Developing small Domain Statistics:Modeling in survey sampling; (2012) , e-Book, LAP, Saarbrucken, GermanyIn addition he has has published 125 peer-reviewed papers alone and jointly in journals including Biometrika, Int. Stat. Rev, Metrika, Stat. Neerlandica, Aust. J.Stat., JSPI, Comm. Stat (Theo. Meth and Comp. Simul), Sankhya, Cal. Stat. Assoc. Bull., J. Ind. Soc. Agri. Stat.Tasos C. Christofides is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Cyprus. He completed his Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 1987, under the supervision of Professor Robert Serfling. From 1987 until 1991 he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the State University of New York at Binghamton. In 1991 he joined the newly founded University of Cyprus and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, becoming its first Chairman. His areas of expertise include indirect questioning techniques and probability inequalities. He is co-author (with Professor Arijit Chaudhuri) of a recent book on Indirect Questioning Techniques in Sample Surveys (Springer, Heidelberg 2013) and author of a number of papers on randomized response and indirect questioning techniques in general. He serves on the editorial board of various journals of probability and statistics. He has participated in a number of research projects and has provided consulting services for various organizations including the Statistical Service of Cyprus. He serves on various national and international scientific and expert committees, among them, the European Statistical Advisory Committee. book “Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya published by the Cambridge Press under the joint authorship of Rao and two anthropologists. On the basis of work done at CU during the two year period, 1946-1948, Rao earned a Ph.D. degree and a few years later Sc.D. degree of CU and the rare honor of life fellowship of Kings College, Cambridge.He retired from ISI in 1980 at the mandatory age of 60 after working for 40 years during which period he developed ISI as an international center for statistical education and research. He also took an active part in establishing state statistical bureaus to collect local statistics and transmitting them to Central Statistical Organization in New Delhi. Rao played a pivitol role in launching undergraduate and postgraduate courses at ISI. He is the author of 475 research publications and several breakthrough papers contributing to statistical theory and methodology for applications to problems in all areas of human endeavor. There are a number of classical statistical terms named after him, the most popular of which are Cramer-Rao inequality, Rao-Blackwellization, Rao’s Orthogonal arrays used in quality control, Rao’s score test, Rao’s Quadratic Entropy used in ecological work, Rao’s metric and distance which are incorporated in most statistical books.He is the author of 10 books, of which two important books are, Linear Statistical Inference which is translated into German, Russian, Czec, Polish and Japanese languages,and Statistics and Truth which is translated into, French, German, Japanese, Mainland Chinese, Taiwan Chinese, Turkish and Korean languages.He directed the research work of 50 students for the Ph.D. degrees who in turn produced 500 Ph.D.’s. Rao received 38 hon. Doctorate degree from universities in 19 countries spanning 6 continents. He received the highest awards in statistics in USA,UK and India: National Medal of Science awarded by the president of USA, Indian National Medal of Science awarded by the Prime Minister of India and the Guy Medal in Gold awarded by the Royal Statistical Society, UK. Rao was a recipient of the first batch of Bhatnagar awards in 1959 for mathematical sciences and and numerous medals in India and abroad from Science Academies. He is a Fellow of Royal Society (FRS),UK, and member of National Academy of Sciences, USA, Lithuania and Europe. In his honor a research Institute named as CRRAO ADVANCED INSTITUTE OF MATHEMATICS, STATISTICS AND COMPUTER SCIENCE was established in the campus of Hyderabad University.
