The Centre is considering a proposal to institute an award for women mathematicians. It will be named after Lilavati, daughter of the legendary astronomer and mathematician Bhaskaracharya, Science and Technology Minister Prithviraj Chavan said here on Wednesday
Lilavati too was said to be an expert in the subject.
The Minister said India would hold an International Congress of Mathematicians later this year in Hyderabad. It had won the bid to host the prestigious event against stiff competition from Canada and Australia at the ICM held in 2006.
The congress has been held continuously every four years since 1897 except for breaks during the two world wars. The coming session, from August 19 to 27, will be the first ever to be held in India. It will only be the third time Asia is hosting the Congress — after a congress in Kyoto in 1990 and another in Beijing in 2002.
Mr. Chavan said the Centre was toying with the idea of establishing an international centre for mathematics with partners across the world.
Many ideas were being considered to promote mathematics in the country. The international congress would give a fillip to it.”
Chairman of the local organising committee M.S. Raghunathan said the congress would include public outreach lectures by internationally renowned mathematicians Martin Groetschel and Guenter Ziegler of Germany and Bill Barton from New Zealand.
It would also feature a chess match between world champion Viswanathan Anand and 40 delegates, and about 200 invited talks on various aspects of mathematics. The Department of Atomic Energy and the University of Hyderabad were supporting the programme, along with the Department of Science and Technology.
Asked whether the reclusive Russian wizard Grigori Perelman would attend, Dr. Raghunathan said efforts were on to make him participate.
In 2006, Prof. Perelman hit the headlines, staying away from a ceremony in Madrid, where he was to get the Fields Medal, the world's topmost prize in Mathematics. It is considered an equivalent to the Nobel Prize.
