Indian-American mathematician among three selected for inaugural Ciprian Foias Prize
Washington, Dec 4: Eminent Indian-American mathematician Nikhil Srivastava, who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, has been jointly selected for the inaugural Ciprian Foias Prize in Operator Theory by American Mathematical Society (AMS).
Along with Srivastava, the two other awardees are Adam Marcus and Daniel Spielman. Adam Marcus holds the Chair of Combinatorial Analysis at the cole Polytechnique F d rale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Spielman is Sterling Professor of Computer Science, a professor of statistics and data science, and a professor of mathematics.
The award recognises their highly original work that introduced and developed methods for understanding the characteristic polynomial of matrices, namely the iterative sparsification method (also in collaboration with Batson) and the method of interlacing polynomials, a media release said.
"Together, these ideas provided a powerful toolkit with many applications, notably in the trio's breakthrough paper Interlacing families II: mixed characteristic polynomials and the Kadison Singer problem (Annals of Mathematics, 2015), which solves the famous paving problem'' in operator theory, formulated by Richard Kadison and Isadore Singer in 1959, AMS said.
In a joint statement, the three awardees said they wish to accept it on behalf of the many people whose work contributed to the resolution of the Kadison Singer problem.
"Our involvement was the final chapter of an amazing story we hope will inspire similar solutions to difficult problems in the future, they said.
The prize will be presented to Professor Srivastava and his colleagues on January 5 next year at the 2022 Joint Mathematics Meeting in Seattle, described as "the largest mathematics gathering in the world."
The Ciprian Foias Prize is the third major prize won by Srivastava, who earlier jointly won the George Polya Prize in 2014, and the Held prize in 2021.
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ED raids Kolkata Police deputy commissioner, businessman in PMLA probe
Kolkata (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate on Sunday conducted raids at the premises of Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner Shantanu Sinha Biswas and a local businessman as part of a money laundering probe against an alleged criminal and his linked syndicate in the poll-bound state, officials said.
Two premises of Biswas, including his residence in Ballygunge area and one location of the businessman named Joy Kamdar, Managing Director of a company named Sun Enterprise, have been raided under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
Kamdar has been taken by the officials to the local ED office for questioning. Biswas, chief coordinator and nodal officer of the West Bengal and Kolkata Police welfare committee, was not present at his premises, they said.
The action is linked to a money laundering case against an alleged local criminal named Biswajit Podder alias Sona Pappu, who is booked in multiple cases on charges of attempted murder and extortion.
The federal probe agency had conducted the first round of searches in this case on April 1.
The ED had then seized cash of Rs 1.47 crore apart from gold jewellery and silver valued at Rs 67.64 lakh and a country-made revolver from some premises that were searched.
The probe stems from a Kolkata Police FIR against against Podder for his alleged involvement in rioting, attempt to murder, criminal conspiracy and Arms Act violations. The accused, including Podder, were engaged in organised criminal syndicate activities in the state of West Bengal and generated funds illegally by way of syndicate operations, the ED said in a statement on April 9.
Podder is also wanted by the police in a case of violence in Kankulia road near Golpark of Kolkata and is currently on the run.
The ED has issued summons to Podder but he has failed to join the investigation so far, according to the agency.
West Bengal will have a two phase poll on April 23 and April 29.
