The caption for today’s column is likely to generate thoughts about the three magical figures (36-24-36) in the minds of the flock with wide-ranging interests in life. For others, the interaction among them has to be through words, chosen with care or otherwise depending on their upbringing and also their stock of vocabulary in their chosen tongue. While the threesome numbers possess information of infinite dimension (pun intended), the words, expressed infinite volume are a different kettle of fish. No small wonder, the birth and advancing march of the ubiquitous digital technology owe to just two numbers of the binary language, series of the digits. The English lexicon, with a prosaic meaning for the expression vital statistics as number of births, deaths, marriages etc., cannot take away the euphoria resulting from its meaning in colloquial parlance as the measurements of woman’s bust, waist and hips. Let it be.

But for the concepts, terms, theory and formulas concerning numbers conveying information about anything of interest, value and use in today’s world in the expanding field of Statistics, the numerically generated and presented information would have driven anybody mad. The term average takes the cake in spite of the reference to the uniform of armed forces which fits all the soldiers on an average but fits none in particular.

Can it be denied that the all-too-familiar information technology has its deep roots in numbers. The field is currently described as Information Communication Technology. Elaborating on the two components of this field, read profession, namely information and communication is outside the scope of this column. However, just to take a potshot at the growing mass of the workforce globally earning enviable livelihood, including the flock in Mysuru, life has acquired complexity thanks to their signature gift called the software, more precisely computer software.

The cornucopia of software has already reached the countless stage and continues to be counting, considering that numbers, read data, are its heart and soul. This brings us to take a close look at the sumptuous statistics coming in the official conduit and its real face — diarrhoea of data. The frequently published official statement that retail inflation is coming down in the land says it all, while aam janata is not even winking at the claim made by the top brass in the government, virtually shooting  that darts sitting on the shoulders of the economists.