Kolkata, Jan 10

 The country needs a large pool of competent statisticians to support the analytical needs of the public and private sectors, President Pranab Mukherjee said here Friday.

At the 48th convocation of Indian Statistical Institute, Mukherjee said: "A large pool of competent statisticians in the country is necessary to support the analytical needs of the public and private sectors."

"Universities and academic institutions teaching statistics and allied subjects must take due care to upgrade the standards of instruction," he added. 

Mukherjee pointed out that data mining and statistical techniques have been used to initiate counter-terrorism programmes like the National Intelligence Grid.

"It is prudent to also exercise due caution in analyzing large data and drawing inferences," the president said.

"Capturing unstructured data and converting them into a structured format are technically challenging problems. They have to be pursued in an enlightened manner," he said.

President Mukherjee also said the efforts have been made to introduce statistical systems for estimation and control of fake Indian currency notes. "It is a fact that statistical models and techniques bestow great advantage to the user," he added. 

By:IANS