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“Modern Trends in Probability and Statistics”
“Modern Trends in Probability and Statistics”
from December 18 to 22, 2026
from December 18 to 22, 2026
in its Kolkata campus
in its Kolkata campus
This conference is a celebration of the outstanding contributions made by late professors
This conference is a celebration of the outstanding contributions made by late professors
Debabrata Basu and Raghu Raj Bahadur
Debabrata Basu and Raghu Raj Bahadur
India has a rich heritage in theoretical statistics and probability. Indian researchers have been making outstanding contributions to these subjects individually and collaboratively.
D. Basu and R. R. Bahadur figure prominently among the stalwarts of statistics and probability who have worked at ISI in the past. Both were born in the year 1924, making 2024 the birth centenary year of both. To commemorate their contribution, faculty members from the Statistical Sciences Division and the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Division of ISI are organizing this conference.
While the theoretical contributions of D. Basu and R. R. Bahadur remain highly relevant, statistics and probability theory have since become very important tools for research in various domains of science. The goal of this conference is to expose young statisticians and probabilists of India to the latest techniques and advances in these subjects and to facilitate interaction among researchers within India and abroad.
The conference will include plenary sessions, invited sessions and several contributed sessions. There will also be a conference banquet.
Prof. Debabrata Basu (1924 - 2001)
Prof. Basu received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley under the guidance of Jerzy Neyman. He was closely associated with the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), where he worked alongside the stalwart C. R. Rao and contributed to a vibrant research environment that shaped modern mathematical statistics. His early years at ISI, including exposure to leading figures such as Abraham Wald, played an important role in his intellectual development. His work reflects a deep engagement with the foundations of statistical inference, often through carefully chosen examples and counterexamples. He is best known for Basu’s Theorem, a fundamental result establishing the independence of a complete sufficient statistic and any ancillary statistic, as well as for his influential contributions to the concepts of sufficiency, ancillarity, and likelihood.
Over time, he moved from the Neyman–Pearson framework to a strong advocacy of the Bayesian approach. His lectures were widely admired for their clarity, rigor, and measure theoretic insight, particularly in their treatment of statistical information. Richard Barlow, reflecting on Basu’s lectures, observed: “He was interested in the concept of information, what it meant, how it fitted in with contemporary statistics. As he looked at the fundamental ideas, the logic behind their use seemed to evaporate. I was shocked. I did not like priors. I did not like Bayesian statistics. But after the smoke cleared, that was all that was left.” He passed away in 2001, is remembered as one of the most influential figures in statistical inference and as an inspiring teacher deeply connected to ISI and its intellectual tradition.
Prof. Raghu Raj Bahadur (1924 - 1997)
Prof. Bahadur received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill under the guidance of Herbert Robbins in 1950, after which he joined the University of Chicago. He then served as a Professor at ISI Calcutta from 1956 to 1961 during which time he was an inspiration to a very large group of researchers in probability and mathematical statistics. In 1961 he left ISI to return to the University of Chicago where he spent the remainder of his academic career.
His essay in this volume shows how deep fundamental issues can be dealt with, illustrating it with the notion of transitivity of sufficiency in sequential analysis. He does not mention any of his famous findings: Bahadur efficiency, Anderson–Bahadur algorithm or Bahadur–Ghosh–Kiefer representation. He (along with Ranga Rao) had realized the importance of the theory of “large deviations” in his work on Bahadur efficiency a long time before it assumed significance in many other fields (S.R.S Varadhan has subsequently contributed substantially to this field, and its importance to fields such as mathematical physics is well understood now). He passed away in 1997, and may easily be described as an early architect of mathematical statistics.
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