Indian Statistical Institute is headquartered in northern outskirt of Baranagar in Kolkata. It was founded by P. C.Mahalanobis in 1931. It is one of prestigious institutions focused on Statistics. Major activities of the institute include research and teaching of Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science and other natural and social sciences. Originally affiliated with the University of Calcutta, the institute was declared an Institute of National Importance in 1959.

The main campus and headquarters is located in Baranagar, in suburban Kolkata. The institute has its campuses at Delhi and Bengaluru that focus on teaching. The institute has offices in seven other locations like Hyderabad. The Director of the institute is Professor Bimal Kumar Roy.

The main areas of expertise include the fields of statistics, mathematics, computer science, quantitative economics, operations research and information science. It is one of the few research oriented Indian schools at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

History of Indian Statistical Institute
A Statistical Laboratory in Presidency College, Kolkata was set up by Mahalanobis in the in 1920s. Many of his colleagues took an interest in statistics and the group grew in the Statistical Laboratory. A meeting was called on 17 December 1931 that led to the establishment of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) which was formally registered on 28 April 1932 as a non-profit distributing learned society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. The institute was registered under the West Bengal Societies Registration Act XXVI of 1961 amended in 1964 and it was relocated to a property owned by Professor Mahalanobis, named "Amrapali", in Baranagar, North Kolkata.

ISI grew gradually with the pioneering work of a group of his colleagues including S. S. Bose, J. M. Sengupta, R. C. Bose, S. N. Roy, K. R. Nair, R. R. Bahadur, G. Kallianpur and D. B. Lahiri. The institute also gained major assistance through Pitamber Pant, who was a secretary to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1933, the journal Sankhya was founded that is published four times annually. In 1959 the ISI was declared as an institute of national importance and a deemed university.

Objectives of Indian Statistical Institute
The major objectives are:
* The study and teaching of statistics, statistical theory, and statistical methods and their use in practical applications and research. It also focuses on problems of national development and social welfare.

* Study in the fields of natural and social sciences giving major focus on the development of statistics in these fields.

* To develop methods and collect information for projects and planning in the fields of management and production.

Courses offered in Indian Statistical Institute
The following are the degree programs offered currently by ISI.
* Bachelor of Statistics (Honours)
* Bachelor of Mathematics (Honours)
* Master of Statistics
* Master of Mathematics
* Master of Science in Quantitative Economics
* Master of Science in Library and Information Science
* Master of Technology in Computer Science
* Master of Technology in Quality, Reliability and Operations Research
* Doctor of Philosophy

Alumni of Indian Statistical Institute
Notable personalities among the alumni of ISI include C. R. Rao, S. R. S. Varadhan, R. C. Bose, D. Basu, K. R. Parthasarathy, Jayanta Kumar Ghosh, G. Jogesh Babu, T. Parthasarathy, Thriyambakam Krishnan, J. S. Rao, Kesar Singh, Ranajit Chakraborty, Probal Chaudhuri, Arup Bose, Subhashis Ghosal, Nilanjan Chatterjee, Sudipto Banerjee, C. A. Murthy and S. Bandyopadhyay and many more.