Kolkata: The issue of the ISI draft bill, that has generated much debate over the autonomy of the institution, weighed heavily at an event organised to mark the birth anniversary of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, founder of Indian Statistical Institute. The day is also celebrated as ‘Statistics Day’ by the govt and the institute observes it as ‘Workers Day’.Two of the speakers spoke about the draft ISI bill that seeks to change the status of ISI from Mahalanobis-registered society to a “body corporate” and urged the ministry of statistics and programme implementation (MoSPI) to initiate a dialogue with stakeholders of ISI about the draft bill. The faculty and staff are apprehensive that the draft ISI bill may be tabled at the monsoon session of the Parliament.Director Amartya Kumar Dutta spoke about ISI’s contribution in applied research and cited three major fundamental research results. “ISI is now at an unprecedented stage, if you leave aside the age of the founders. However, when I go to Delhi and meet people, the perception is that ‘Sei ISI ar nei” (ISI is no longer same). I had sent out invitations to many scientists for this event. One of them could not come because he had to go to Delhi to receive the Sukhatme National Award in statistics from the MoSPI. Ironically, articles sometimes appear on their website stating that nothing is happening in ISI effectively. People don’t even see the contradiction.”Scientist and president of ISI Workers’ Organisation Partha Pratim Mohanta said, “Prasanta Chandra Mahalonobis embodied the spirit of Bengal Renaissance and to injure its autonomy now is to reject the very spirit that gave birth to it.” “It is tragic that the ISI Society is being abolished when it is close to celebrating its centenary. This is being done to align ISI with the IIT or IIM model as if that is the only successful academic governance model in India. Most of the problems in this bill arise from the vision-less perspective of fitting ISI into the IIT or IIM model. ISI has a long legacy of research for close to 100 years, and teaching courses for 65 years. If you ask such an institute to fit into the shoes of another institute, there will be major problems,” he added. Assistant professor Paramita Das, also convenor of the reception committee, feels if the ministry is serious about reforming governance of ISI, it should open a dialogue.
