Dr. Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar
Dr. Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar is a renowned mathematician and statistician. He was Director of Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) from 2011-2021 and is now the Professor Emeritus at CMI. Prior to that he was Professor at Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Delhi till 2006 where he has undertaken several academic and admin roles at ISI. He has also worked with corporate world- Cranes Software, Bangalore from 2006-2010. Currently, he is also the Chairman of the National Statistical Commission, Government of India, with the rank of Minister of State at the center. This is an advisory body.
He received his B.Sc. degree in mathematics from Holkar Science College, University of Indore, Indore in June 1976 and his M.Stat. from Indian Statistical Institute in July 1978. He later obtained his PhD degree from ISI, Calcutta in December 1981. He went for his postdoctoral research to University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to work under Gopinath Kallianpur. He spent three years as a visiting professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and returned to Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi in 1984 as an associate professor. He became a full professor in 1989. In 2006, he moved to Cranes Software International Limited as executive vice president for analytics. He moved to Chennai Mathematical Institute in 2010.
His research interests include several areas of probability theory, finitely additive probability measures, stochastic calculus, martingale problems and Markov processes, Filtering theory, option pricing theory, psephology in the context of Indian elections and cryptography, among others.
He has conducted opinion polls for Indian Parliamentary elections and state assembly polls for Doordarshan, Aaj Tak/T V Today, Network 18, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, ABP News. He has also conducted training programmes on Stochastic Calculus for ICICI Bank and other financial organizations.
Over the last 25 years, he has also used his statistical and mathematical understanding in various application areas- this started with Opinion poll-based election prediction. Over the last two decades, he has played a role in various fields: He was consulted by the Central bureau of Investigations (CBI) in a case regarding cheating in a multiple-choice examination. He has worked with Weapons & Electronics Systems Engineering Establishment (WESEE), under Ministry of Defence, Government of India on Cryptography and developed Block Ciphers for WESEE. He was engaged by Clearing Corporation of India (CCIL) during 2016-2019 to review Risk Management Models and Processes at CCIL. He was Chairman of the working group of the National Sample Survey, for the 71st Round. He was a member of the committee constituted by Election Commission (EC) of India to advise EC on the sampling scheme for EVM-VVPAT verification. The report was the basis of EC’s final reply to the Supreme Court just before the 2019 parliamentary poll. He was a member of the expert committee constituted by the Supreme Court (with Justice Singhvi (Retd) as Chairman, Mr Nandan Nilkeni, Dr V. Bhatkar as members) in 2019 regarding suggesting steps to deal with fraud in online examinations.
While his research and teaching has been at Undergraduate and Graduate level, he did connect with School children very closely as well. During 2000-2005 he was the National coordinator for Indian National Mathematics Olympiad (INMO) activity undertaken by NBHM (National Board of Higher Mathematics). The INMO conducted by NBHM is the official Olympiad for Maths in India as the team chosen represents India.
We are extremely happy that Dr. Rajeeva Laxman Karandikar has agreed to guide us in the overall development of the school.
Our Founder Mr. Ashok Kumar will be a part of the committee. Additionally, Mr. Jairam Balakrishnan will also be a part of the committee.
