Statistics, big data management and Artificial Intelligence will play an “even more significant role” in years to come, Vice-President, M Venkaiah Naidu, said on Friday.

And with technology becoming all pervasive, the power of computing, communication and robotics need to be harnessed in order to improve the quality of life. Naturally, knowledge explosion, information over-load and data driven lives are commonplace, he maintained.

“To improve the quality of life and to make informing choices, we need data, we need statistics, we need tools to analyse and synthesise,” Naidu said.

He was present on the occasion of the celebration of closing ceremony of the year-long 125th birth anniversary of Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis and National Statistics Day at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

He further pointed out that statistics is the backbone of good governance; and enables “evidence-based decisions”. And, data analysing and synthesising gives new insights.

“It enables us to understand different dimension of everyday life from education levels to health status, from air quality to water purity, from production to productivity, from income to expenditure,” he said.

Mahalanobis, according to Naidu, had long ago observed India’s population as a “potential asset”. The observation remains relevant even today with over 65 per cent of the country’s current population being under 35 years of age.

This “potential asset” has to be converted to an “actual asset” and in case the country fails to convert this opportunity, there will be a number of socio-economic problems.

“We cannot realise the demographic dividend unless we equip this population with the skills, knowledge and attitude required for the knowledge economy of the twenty first century,” the Vice-President said.

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