The Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), eastablished in 1931 in Calcutta, had its origin in the Statistical Laboratory set up by Prashanta chandra Mahalanabish (1893-1972) in his office when he was Professor of Physics at Presidency College, Calcutta. Mahalanabish and his students – among them Rajchandra Basu (1901-), Samerendranath Ray and C. R. Rao – made major contributions to the theory and methods of statistics as well as its application to other disciplines. The most notable are Mahalanabish’s D² statistics and R. C. Basu’s work on the Design of Experiments and Coinbinatories. With the active cooperation of R. A. Risher, the father of modern statistics, and J.B.S. Haldane, who joined the Institute in 1957, the ISI began to undertake research in several natural and social sciences with the hope that collaboration under the same roof would foster the mutual development of statistics and these disciplines. The drafting of India’s Second Five-Year Plan was entrusted by Nehru to Mahalanabish and his Institute.