P.C. Mahalanobis

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             P.C. Mahalanobis   A well-known Indian statistician and scientist, Mahalanobis is greatly popular for introducing new methods of sampling. His most significant contribution in the field of statistics was the 'Mahalanobis Distance'. Besides, he had also made pioneering studies in the field of anthropometry and had founded the Indian Statistical Institute.  Originally, the family of Mahalanobis belonged to Bikrampur, Bangladesh. As a child. Mahalanobis grew up in an environment surrounded by socially active refoemers and intellectuals. He had his initial education from Brahmo Boys School Calcutta. Further, he enrolled himself into Presidency College and got a BSc degree with specialisation in physics. In 1913, Mahalanobis left for England for ther stodies and came in contact with S. Ramanujan, the famous mathematician from India. After completion of his studies. he returned
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Birbal Sahni

                  Birbal Sahni 

The renowned paleobotanist, Birbal Sahni, was born on 14 November 1891 at Shahpur district, now in Pakistan. He was the third son of Ishwari Devi and Lala Ruchi Ram Sahni. He studied at the Government College, Lahore and Punjab University and graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1914. After completion of his education, Birbal Sahni came back to India and worked as professor of botany at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi and Punjab University for about a year. In 1920, he married Savitri Suri, who took an interest in his work and was a constant companion. 

He studied the fossils of the Indian subcontinent. He was the founder of Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow. Palaeobotany is a subject that requires the knowledge of both botany and geology. Birbal Sahni was the first botanist to study extensively about the flora of Indian Gondwana region. Sahni also explored the Raj Mahal hills in Bihar, which is a treasure house of fossils of ancient plants. Here he discovered many new genus of plants. 


Birbal Sahni was not only botanist but also a geologist. By using simple instruments and his huge knowledge of ancient plants, he estimated the age of some old rocks. He showed to the people that the salt range, now in Pakistan Punjab, is 40 to 60 million years old. He found that the Deccan Traps in Madhya
Pradesh were of the tertiary period, about 62 million years old. Moreover, Sahni took a keen interest in archaeology. One of his investigations led to the discovery of coin moulds in Rohtak in 1936. He was awarded the Nelson Wright Medal of the Numismatic Society of India for his studies on the technique of casting coins in ancient India. 


Being a teacher, Sahni first raised the standard of teaching at the Department of Botany. Sahni died on the night of 10 April 1949, less than a week after laying the foundation stone of his institute. The Institute of Palaeobotany was the first of its kind in the world. His wife completed the task he had left undone. The institute is today known as the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany.
Location: Shahpur, Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan

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