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Department and he went to Allahabad
University. In 1938 Saha returned to the
Calcutta University as Palit Professor and
Head of the Department of Physics. He
founded the Institute of Nuclear Physics
which now carries his name. In 1952 he was
elected to the Lok Sabha as an independent
candidate with the help of the leftist parties.
From 1952 till his death in 1956 he was an
active parliamentarian interesting himself in
diverse subjects like planning, river control
and states' reorganisation. He was interested
in the reform of the Indian Calendar and in
1952 headed the Calendar Reform Committee.
Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis
(1893-1973)
P.C. Mahalanobis was born on June 29,
1893 in Calcutta. He had his early education
at the Brahmo Boys School and passed the
Bachelor of Science examination with
Honours in Physics in 1912 from the
Presidency College, Calcutta. He entered
King's College, Cambridge in 1913 to study
physics. Here he became acquainted with
Ramanujan the great mathematician, who was
in Trinity College. He became interested in
statistics when his tutor in Cambridge showed
him some new bound volumes of the journal
Biometrika.
He left England for India in 1915
with the intention of returning to continue his
research in physics but decided to stay on in
India when he was offered the post of
Assistant Professor of Physics in the
Presidency College. He became Professor and
Head of the Department of Physics. He was
Principal of the College in 1945 till his
retirement in 1948. In the meantime he laid
the foundation of statistics in India. Statistics
as a separate discipline was not then known
anywhere in the world. Mahalanobis formed
the nucleus of the Stastical Laboratory in a
portion of the Physics Department of the
Presidency College. His first work of
statistical
analysis
was
analysis
of
examination data by statistical methods which
he was asked to carry out by Bajendranath
Seal, then Professor of Philosophy in Calcutta
University, who had been appointed Chairman
of a Committee to inquire into the
examination system. His first paper on
statistics was "The Statistical Analysis of
Anglo - Indian structure" based on the
anthropological measurements of 200 Anglo-
Indians. He undertook a statistical study of
meteorological problems. He was appointed
metrorologist in the Alipore Observatory in
Calcutta. The Indian Statistical Institute was
established in
1931
with R.N. Mukerjee, the eminent
industrialist as president and Mahalanobis as
the Honorary Secretary. The next contribution
of Mahalanobis was in the field of large-scale
Sample Surveys leading to the inauguration in
1950 of the National Sample Survey, the
largest Sample Survey of its kind in the world.
Mahalanobis was the architect of the Second
Five-Year Plan. He prepared a Draft Plan-
Frame which was accepted as the basis for the
formulation of the Second Five-Year Plan
which had a new approach. Unlike the First
Plan where the emphasis was on the
development of agriculture, Mahalanobis
suggested that emphasis should be laid in the
Second Plan on the rapid development of basic
heavy industries. He founded the Journal of
statistics -
Sankhya-
which is the only
scientific journal in India with a worldwide
reputation.
Rail Ahmad Kidwai
(1894-1954)
Rafi Ahmad Kidwai was bom on February
18,1894 in a middle class family at Masauli in
Barabanki District of Uttar Pradesh. His father
Imtiaz Ali was a Government servant. Since
he had to move from place to place because of
transfers, Rafi Ahmad was looked after by his
uncle Vilayat Ali who was anti- British, an
advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity and stood for
closer ties between the Congress and the
Muslim League. Young Rafi Ahmad imbibed
from his uncle his intense feeling of
nationalism. After his matriculation, he joined
the MAO college at Aligarh in 1916. It was
here that he became an efficient organiser of
election campaigns. He took special interest in
the activities of the college union, putting up
and supporting candidates who were
persona
non grata
with the college authorities but who
were known for their anti-British and
nationalistic views. Also as the senior food
monitor he was successful in improving the
quality of food in the students' hostel. After
passing his BA he joined the LLB at Aligarh
but could not complete it. He had become a
member of the Congress and the Khilafat
organisations in 1920 and left his studies one
month before the commencement of the LLB
examination to participate in the Non-co-
operation movement. He was arrested and
imprisoned in Lucknow Jail where he met
Jawaharlal and Motilal Nehru who were
among the inmates. He joined the Swaraj
Party. Resigned from the Central Assembly in
1930 when Gandhi started the Civil
Disobedience Movement. It was mainly due to
his efforts that the movement was successful
in Uttar Pradesh. In the 1937 elections he was
the chief organiser of the Congress campaign
in UP. The Congress won 134 out of 228
seats. This enhanced his position and
popularity as a successful election manager.
Became Minister for Revenue and Jails in the
Congress Ministry that was formed after the
elections. He was the most accessible
minister, always generous in helping those
with problems. Many students completed their
studies with his help and many unemployed
persons got jobs through him. In the UP
Congress Ministry formed in April 1946 Rafi
Ahmad
was
Home
Minister.
As
Communications Minister in the Union
Cabinet after Independence he proved to be
successful and competent, introducing
innovations like the Night Air Mail service,
the All-up Air Mail service, and Own Your
Own Telephone scheme. He introduced the
"inland letter", a weekly holiday for postmen
on Sunday and laid the foundation-stone for
the Indian Telephone Industries near
Bangalore. He resigned from the Union
Cabinet and the Congress in August, 1951
over his ideological differences with P.D.
Tandon, the Congress President, but rejoined
in October 1951 in response to a call from
Nehru to all who had left the party to rejoin it.
He became Union Food Minister in 1952 at a
time when the food position was critical
because of drought. After studying the food
situation at first hand by visiting different
parts of the country he concluded that the
food situation was not so hopeless as it
appeared. He abolished rationing and'removed
all controls on food. He turned a situation of
scarcity into one of self-sufficiency. He died
on October 24,1954 after a heart attack.
Satyendra Nath Bose
(1894-1974)
The only physicist whose name is linked
wiith Einstein in all the textbooks of physics,
SatyendraNath Bose was born on January 1,
1894. After obtaining his M.Sc. from Calcutta
University in 1915 he became Lecturer in
Calcutta University in 1916 and was appointed
Reader in Dacca University in 1921. In 1924
he formulated with Einstein the Bose-Einstein
law of quantum mechanics which assumes that
any number of identical particles may occupy
the same energy level. (The other statistical
method is called the Fermi-Dirac statistics).
There are thus two statistical patterns that
assemblies of elementary particles follow
which is the basis for their division into
Bosuns and Fermions. Particles that obey the
Bose-Einstein statistics are called Bosuns after
Bose. He was a co-worker of Madame Curie
from 1924-25 at her laboratory in Paris and
worked with Einstein from 1925- 26. He was a
member of Parliament (Rajya