account, not only their capacity to compute the capital requirement under those approaches but also their capacities to sustain the bank ’ s risk profile and the consequent capital levels under various scenarios, especially stress scenarios. • the preconditions for migration to the advanced approaches would include ( a ) well established, efficient and independent risk management framework ; ( b ) supported by well established, efficient it and mis infrastructure ; ( c ) cost benefit analysis of adoption of advanced approaches ; ( d ) availability of appropriate skills and capacity to retain / attract such skills at all points in time ; and ( e ) a well established, effective and independent internal control mechanism for supplementing the risk management systems. i hope the subsequent sessions would discuss in greater detail some of these issues. it is important for the sector as a whole to appreciate and internalize the basic philosophy of the basel ii, with all attendant costs and benefits. undoubtedly the discipline of risk management has significantly altered the ethos of the banking as an economic activity. but one point i would like to stress in conclusion is that banks should view the opportunities opened up by these complex financial instruments in the perspective of larger systemic interest. today internationally, when market discipline is being considered an integral part of the regulatory framework, it is imperative for banks to realize that they are equal partners in ensuring financial stability ; and this involves helping build up a risk management culture across all stakeholders. any distortions brought about by misalignment of risk needs and the product being offered to address the risk can only harm and arrest the development of a healthy market.

spillover ; and ( d ) communication of official statistics. the latest phase aims to address data gaps related to ( i ) climate change ; ( ii ) household distributional information ; ( iii ) fintech and financial inclusion ; and ( iv ) scaling up access to private and administrative data and improve data sharing. 14. the proliferation of internet has led to an explosion in the availability and demand for data. businesses are making large investments to predict the behaviour of consumers by exploiting the advances made in the field of data analytics. amidst this inundation of data and inferences, it is important that peculiarities and nonconformities are subjected to robust statistical analysis and peer review before deriving conclusions. 15. in other words, statistics should focus on laying down the pathway towards proper interpretation in the present world of data abundance. this would facilitate more informed decision making, clarity in communication from decision makers and formation of rational expectations from market participants. 16. in most countries today including our own, there are greater demands from the profession of statistics for policy inputs and decision making. such rising demands on the profession necessitate robust quality of statistics and statistical methods. i would encourage the statisticians in the reserve bank of india, as well as those outside the bank, to make full use of the opportunities available by way of advances in statistical methods. we are living in an era where computing power practically has no boundaries. this is an opportunity as well as a challenge for statisticians across the world. 17. i earnestly hope that today ’ s deliberations will inspire our officers, especially the younger officers, to ask pertinent questions and rise to the challenges of the post - pandemic world. their endeavour should be to innovate solutions keeping in mind the mahalanobis dictum 7 : “ statistics must have a clearly defined purpose, one aspect of which is scientific advance and the other, human welfare and national development. ” 18. my best wishes for productive deliberations in today ’ s conference. thank you. rao, c. radhakrishna ( 1993 ). “ statistics must have a purpose : the mahalanobis dictum. ” sankhya : the indian journal of statistics, series a ( 1961 - 2002 ), vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 331 – 49.