Celebrating 100 years of Dr C.R. Rao. Host: Anil Bera. Coproducer: Malabika Koley. Editor: Wei Wang.

Описание: Hello, I am Anil Bera from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).

Thursday September 10, 2020 marked the 100th year of Dr C.R. Rao. This was truly a historical occasion to celebrate. Three of us Professor Krishnaji, Professor Nagraj and I organized two online webinars due to COVID-19. This video is about the first one which was held on Monday September 7th, 2020 and at one stage the number of participants went way beyond 250.

I would say this webinar was a great success of course the credit goes to Dr. Rao. We had three most prominent statisticians from India to discuss life and work of Dr. Rao. They were Professor BLS Prakasa Rao, Professor Rahul Mukherjee and Professor Bimal Roy. We managed to include some Rabindra Sangeet (Rabindranath Tagore's music) into the program because Tagoe's music is also one of the favorites of Dr. Rao. This music was conducted by a mathematician cum professional singer Dr. Sudeshna Basu. I think this inclusion of music in any statistical meetings or gathering is the very first! Thus, we are very proud of that.

As you can guess to organize an event of this skill it requires the effort of many people. I was very fortunate to get help from many of my students and some colleagues. My student Malabika Koley (a Ph.D. student at UIUC, Economics Department) did a lot of work. I should also mention Professor Tejaswini Rao, daughter of Dr. Rao for her constant encouragement and unfailing support. [Please see her messages below]. Of course, there are many more; it is impossible to mention everyone here.

At the end of the day, this webinar was a three and a half hours long video. So, you can imagine how long the participants stayed. However, it would be very hard to watch a three and a half hour of video. Thus, we had to cut it down to watchable length. Now this video is about one and half hours. As you can imagine, to cut a video of three and a half hours to one and a half hour, is a very painstaking job That job had been skillfully executed by my current research assistant Wei (Vivienne Wang), who is a senior Econ & Math major at UIUC, Economics Department.

This is my Introduction. Now let us watch the video. Thank you!

Update: 'Endorsement' from Professor Tejaswini Rao, daughter of Dr. Rao:
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Teja Rao
Fri 4/15/2022 11:50 AM
I am so grateful and thankful to all of you for the love and regard that you have shown dad and all the special events you organized. It involves a lot of coordination and effort and you put it all together during the pandemic. Thank you to all from the bottom of my heart. Best, Teja
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Teja Rao
Fri 4/15/2022 8:21 AM
Dear Prof. Bera,
Thank you so much for this. It is a treasure to add to my Dad's birthday celebrations. I will show it to him today. Also your earlier Interview with Dad is one of the definitive ones. Thank you.
Regards,
Teja
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