The Seventy-nine years of the professor's life was full of activity. His contributions were massive on the academic side as the builder of the Indian Statistical Institute, editor of Sankhya, Pioneer in the application of statistical techniques to practical problems, architech of the Indian 2nd Five Year Plan.

Professor Mahalanobis took a wider view of Statistics as a 'new technology for increasing the efficiency of human efforts in the widest sense'. He was a great Scientist who applied statistics to as diverse disciplines as anthropology and flood research. Prof mahalanobis contributed in a big way to economic planning and the problems of social and economic development. His work stimulated research in quantitative economics in the country and the collection of socio-economic data through Censuses and Surveys. His interest were infact, much wider and covred disciplines like anthropology, demography, psychology and education.

As a literary critic, he wrote many articles and essays on Tagore and his writtings. As a Secretary ( Karma Sachiva) of Visva Bharati, Mahalonobis was closely associated with Rabindranath Tagore and worked in Bengali Linguistics.