First-Ever Private Mathematics Institute to Launch in Mumbai

Mumbai will soon be home to India’s first privately funded institute for mathematical sciences, called the Lodha Mathematical Sciences Institute (LMSI). It will open in Mumbai next weekend. Its first symposium will be held on August 17. The LMSI will be located in New Cuffe Parade, Wadala, at a residential and business complex.

The institute will focus on both pure and applied mathematics. Its goal is to become a leader in research. A 12-member scientific advisory council has been formed. It includes some of the world’s top mathematicians. The council will guide the institute’s work.

The council includes Fields Medal winners like Manjul Bhargava, who is a professor at Princeton University. He won the Fields Medal in 2014. The other members include Sourav Chatterjee and Yakov Eliashberg from Stanford, Kavita Ramanan from Brown, and many others. 

The first thematic programme will begin this month. It will focus on arithmetic statistics. Bhargava will lead this programme. The LMSI plans to hold such six-month programmes regularly. It will also start an annual Indian Congress of Mathematicians. 

The institute will host lecture series on different topics. Details about student intake and future expansion have not yet been shared. The director of LMSI will be Vijaya Kumar Murty. He has made key contributions to number theory and arithmetic geometry. 

Other scientific advisors of LMSI include Vikraman Balaji, François Labourie, Alexander Lubotzky, Mahan Mj, Siddhartha Mishra, Raman Parimala, and Ravi Vakil.

The institute is backed by the Lodha Group. Its CEO, Abhishek Lodha, is leading the effort. The Lodha Foundation described mathematics as a universal tool for progress. It said maths plays a key role in everyday life, from space tech to digital payments.

The Lodha Philanthropy Foundation is funding the institute. Last Diwali, the Lodha Group gave a large part of its shares in Macrotech Developers Ltd to the foundation. The mathematics institute is one of four projects under the foundation. It has received an initial capital of INR 20,000 crore (USD 2.5 billion).