First ever genome of chickpea

By Dr P K Mukherjee

India is the largest producer of chana

A landmark breakthrough has been achieved by sequencing the genome of Chickpea (चना) by a team of 49 scientists of 10 labs across the world thanks to the dynamic leadership of Dr Rajeev Varshney. The significance of the research is immense as it would be possible in future to develop new varieties of chana which would be able to grow faster with more yields taking care of diseases, global warming and drought conditions. The research has not been patented but has been kept in open domain so that farmers in chickpea growing regions of India and rest of the world can be benefitted.

Dr Rajeev Varshney, Director, Center of Excellence in Genomics (CEG)

A global agricultural research team of 49 scientists successfully mapped the genome sequence of chickpea (चना ) which is the world’s second most widely grown legume crop after soyabean. There are two main types of chickpeas: small-seeded desi and larger-seeded Kabuli.While the consumption of desi is restricted primarily to Middle East and Southeast Asia, Kabuli is a popular and valuable global commodity. The highly nutritious chickpea contributes to income generation and improved livelihoods of smallholder farmers in African countries and is crucial to the food security in India.

Chickpea–a nutritious and agro-ecological legume crop

Domesticated in the ancient Mediterranean region over 700 years ago, chickpea is a major legume crop grown globally on 11.5 million hectares with India being the largest producer (70 percent of global production) and consumer. It is a highly nutritious, rich in protein, energy, vitamins and minerals. Its protein content is between 20-30 percent which is two to three times more than cereals like wheat and rice. Moreover, chickpea is the highest source of dietary fibre, a vital part of healthy diet, as it facilitates digestion.

Chickpea is cooked in many ways including chana dal (desi variety) and curries and its flour (besan) is used in making pakoras and many cuisines. It is also crucial for the nutrition of the poor. In India, roasted chickpea flour, called sattu, is the main meal for the poor, hard-working manual labourers because it is energising, nutritious and affordable. In fact, the World Food Program is currently exploring chickpea paste in a ready-to-use food to address malnutrition.

Genome mapping of chickpea

The global team succeeded in identifying an estimated 28,259 genes of chickpea after sequencing a Canadian Kabuli chickpea variety, called CDC Frontier. The team also carried out resequencing of additional 90 cultivated and wild varieties from ten different countries.

The chickpea genome sequencing project was undertaken by the International Chickpea Genome Sequencing Consortium (ICGSC) led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ICRISAT), a member of the CGIAR Consortium. This was made possible, thanks to the collaborative efforts of Rajeev Varshney, who is the coordinator of ICGSC and Director of Centre of Excellence in Genomics at ICRISAT, and his 48 colleagues spread across the world. In all, 23 organisations from 10 countries have been involved in this global research. The collaborating countries are India, USA, Germany, Canada, Australia, China, Czech Republic, Denmark and Mexico. The team could successfully assemble 74 percent of the chickpea genome within record two years. This time span is relatively fast compared to the other grain genome sequencing like maize, rice and wheat attempted earlier.

Also, by analysing the genome, scientists have identified candidate genes for disease resistance, drought and heat tolerance and early maturity. The latter types have the advantage that the plants growing more quickly can be harvested earlier before the dry spells. This research was published in the highly ranked scientific journal, Nature Biotechnology on Jan 27, 2013.

This is the second time (after sequencing the pigeon pea genome in 2011, see December, 2011 issue of Lokayat) that an Indian scientist (Dr Rajeev Varshney, both the times) led genome sequencing of a crop species and published findings in the highest respected scientific journal.

What are the potential benefits of the genome sequencing of chickpea? India, being the largest producer and consumer of chickpea, will directly benefit from this research. The farming of this legume crop in India covers around 8 million hectares of land. It is the most dominating legume crop of India and is widely cultivated in Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. Chickpea is also an important component of the pulse industry in Australia, Canada and USA and so these countries are also expected to reap benefit from the chickpea mapping.
According to scientists, genome sequencing of chickpea would facilitate the development of improved varieties with higher yields. The chickpea genome sequencing is also expected to help development of superior varieties with enhanced drought tolerance and more resistance to damaging pests and diseases, such as the pod borer insects which cause nearly 20-30 percent annual yield losses in India alone.

Most climate scenarios foresee a 2 degrees warmer world. Against this backdrop of climate change, the genome mapping will help chickpea breeders developing more resilient varieties that are essential to adapt to a drier and warmer climate. An important prerequisite for crop improvement is genetic diversity. However, chickpea has a narrow genetic diversity which means that the cultivated varieties have very similar genes. This has basically resulted from domestication of the crop because, over the years, breeders and growers have continually chosen only a handful of chickpea varieties for breeding and cultivation. According to Rajeev Varshney, genome sequencing of 90 chickpea lines will help bringing lost genetic diversity from wild species to the varieties being cultivated. Thus, the new study can prove valuable for enhancing the genetic diversity of cultivated chickpea gene pool.
‘It may take 4-8 years to breed a new chickpea variety. Armed with genome sequencing this time could be almost halved’, said Rajeev Varshney.

The chickpea genome sequencing is publicly accessible with no intellectual property rights (IPR) involved. Thus, with open access to the chickpea genome, the breeders can develop improved crop varieties with market-preferred traits.

What are genome and genome sequencing?

Dr Rajeev Varshney

Genome represents the entire genetic information of an organism which, for plants and animals, is encoded in their deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Through genome sequencing, the scientists identify the genes responsible for various functions within the body of the organism. However, the genome sequence doesn’t immediately lay open the genetic secrets of an organism. Even when a draft of the genome sequence is in hand, much work still remains to be done. The scientists have to figure out how a genome works; what genes, making up the genome, are responsible for a characteristic trait; how different genes are related; and how various parts of the genome are coordinated. 

No scientist to lead centenary celebrations!

Manmohan Singh (Left) inaugurating the Indian Science Congress, 2013

By Vinod Varshney

Since no one who has not studied science up to the graduate level can aspire to get even the primary membership of the Indian Science Congress Association, nomination of  prime minister Manmohan Singh, a non-science person,  as its general president in its centenary year is inexplicable.

Does it mean that India has not even one scientist worth his lab-coat to head the Association in its landmark year? This looks even more odd in the context of the official publicity that Manmohan Singh is the only prime minister other than Nehru to hold this august office. 

True, Nehru was nominated as its general president in 1947 and he continued even after he became prime minister. But he was an uncanny visionary who had made seminal contributions to the growth of India’s basic science infrastructure. It was his far-sight in establishing the series of national labs that took us where we are in nuclear science, space technology, food security, healthcare and industrial advances.

In comparison Manmohan Singh’s record is dismal. Year after year he repeats from the podium of  Science Congress  that we should  spend 2 percent of GDP on S&T research, but in eight years of his rule this goal has move up to 1 percent from 0.8!  

While he splurged several lakh crores on subsidies and subventions which can at best be labelled as dole-oriented, or cash for votes, they add next to nothing to the nation’s assets. But when it comes to science he has no money. 

Science administrators assure that there is no dearth of money; only, our system is unable to utilise it. One fails to understand whose responsibility is it to see that enough money is allocated for science and properly spent. Putting any Johnny in charge of S&T ministry will not help.  

The bureaucrats quote figures to show that the government is meeting 73 percent of the overall R&D expenditure; it is for the private sector to do the rest.  But the private sector looks for short term profits rather than long-term benefits. It is unfortunate that both the government and the private sector do not see much role for S&T in India’s future.   

Look at China. Its new ruling caucus has none without a management or technology PG. It is the secret of their phenomenal rally in all fields. They are now poised to overtake the USA in many S&T fields. Two years ago China built the fastest super computer. Today it has mastered virtually all frontier technologies --it  builds stealth aircraft, submarines, missiles and spacecraft for manned flight.  

With the world galloping away fast India stands little chance of catching up unless its higher science education and research bases are overhauled and fortified. The new S&T policy unveiled at the Science Congress is a fine document but without commitment to implement, it would remain an academic paper!  

The next budget, coming on the 2014 Lok Sabha election-eve, will be populist. So, no point in anticipating any big deal for S&T. Then how will the government implement the imperatives listed in the new S&T policy?

Indian Science Congress Association perhaps daydreams that by making Manmohan Singh the general president, his mind could be re-engineered to give more money to Indian science! 

Superbugs can be tackled

 

By Vinod Varshney 

Superbugs scare everyone as no antibiotic in the world can kill them. Yet, there is no need to be over-scared so long as one can take measures to keep them at bay. In India they have been traced even in drinking water, but they get killed in chlorinated or boiled water provided it is boiled for at least 20 minutes.

Yet there is no reason to be in denial mode as has been displayed by Indian research bodies and the government as superbugs can multiply very fast.  

Originally the controversy related to superbugs in India was more because of the fact that the gene, giving them the invincible power, was given a ‘Delhi’ tag as though the superbugs are found only in Delhi or India. The reality is that this is a global problem. Superbugs have been found in US, China and Japan also.

Superbug controversy has raged again after the recent publication of a report in British magazine Lancet that superbug genes were detected in 2 out of 50 water samples collected from pits and ponds of various parts of Delhi. A year also a study was published in British Medical Journal which said doctors at P.D. Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Centre had found the rogue gene in as many as 22 of the 24 isolates collected in just 3 months.

This year’s Lancet report has been questioned on the ground that no Indian scientists were involved in it. It may be recalled in this connection that the earlier report of Dr. Timothy Walsh published in the British Medical Journal was produced in collaboration with Indian researchers. But when the controversy became too embarrassing for the entire medical sector of India and the government, those researchers were branded as anti-India, threatened and show-cause notices were served to a few of them. Who would like to rope in Indian researchers if they are exposed to such a fate after an honest research?

The ruling sentiments in India are that these reports were intended to tarnish the image of India and harm its growing medical tourism business. Therefore everybody asked why Delhi tag has been appended when superbugs have been found in several other countries too. The name of the superbug gene could just have been ‘Metallolatamase-1’ in place of ‘New Delhi Metallolatamase-1’.

But this should not be an alibi to ignore the threat of superbugs. But we to the horror of many Sheila Dixit, the Chief Minister of Delhi discounted the threat. Similar was the attitude of Indian Council of Medical Research which initially even described the British research as unscientific. But lately it has decided to do a nationwide research on this issue and has invited scientists to submit research proposals. The scientists of this apex organisation feel that the problem of super bug may be in all parts the country and at all levels of health care.

The research will also be carried out to study genes of microbes to know the areas which could be targeted by drugs to kill it. This would also help in development of better diagnostics. Research would also focus on developing methods for early diagnosis and detection of resistant strains. 
(The article was published in the May, 2011 issue of Lokayat)

Indian Science Congress-2011

Now is the Time to Revive Nalanda Spirit

Vinod Varshney

  India needs to revive Nalanda Tradition of learning if it again wants to become a scientific power. This is the key message Amartya Sen, a Nobel Laureate gave during his lecture to hundreds of delegates in the 98th Indian Science Congress being held at SRM University in Chennai. Sen said it was time to recollect the scientific tradition of old Nalanda

  Prof Sen reminded that Nalanda University was destroyed 700 years ago by Afghan conqueror Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1193. That was the time when Oxford and Cambridge were taking birth. The oldest European university at Bologna was born when Nalanda had been more than 600 years old. The Al-Azhar University in Cairo, another distinguished university with which Nalanda is often compared, was set up in 970 A.D. -- more than 500 years after Nalanda was founded.

Need to Generate a New Indian Story

  This is an old story of old Indian glory. Any modern Indian today cannot just keep repeating and feeling that we were great in the past. Nalanda culture and spirit should pervade Indian mind. Only time will tell how the effort of five countries – Japan, China, Singapore, Thailand and India – to build new Nalanda would be able to do it.

  While we revive Nalanda, we need to really think of today’s decay, and try to know who are destroying our universities. Most Indians would agree that the true reason of educational decay is our political and business culture which has taken over our educational system.

Indian Science Declined During Last 20 Years

  But government priorities are also to blame. Scientific Advisory Council of the Prime Minister told in a report that the science in India had declined in the past 20 years. It was because of “sub-critical and inadequate investment by the Government and Industry in research.”

  One needs to remember how successive Indian Science Congresses had been during the entire previous decade exhorting Central Government to increase R&D expenditure in terms of percentage of the GDP, but it remains stagnant only at 0.8 percent. Prof KC Pandey the General President of the Indian Science Congress said in his address that “advanced countries spend around 30 per cent of their total Research and Development expenditure in the university sector, while in India it is only six per cent.”

  Prof Pandey wants that the Centre or state governments, in collaboration with the private sector, should establish Special Education Zones primarily dedicated to the development of higher professional educational institutions and R&D centres.

Indian Science Congress 2011

What Ails Indian Science Education ?

Vinod Varshney

The truth of Indian Universities is that much attention is not given on research, which is quite natural in the Indian situation when power and money matter more than knowledge and sincerity. The educational culture is being vitiated fast by mushrooming private universities and colleges, many of which have been opened with the blatant intention of only making money.


No surprise that any conscientious academic would lament that even after 63 years of independence we don’t have even one which can be counted among the top 200 universities of the world. This fact was effectively underscored by Dr K. C. Pandey the General President of the Indian Science Congress in his Presidential speech Tuesday in SRM University of Chennai.


Unluckily his speech would not find sufficient space in the mainstream media, which remains more concerned about reporting what government leaders say.


Beleagured Leader Loses Sheen

The 98th Indian Science Congress was inaugurated Tuesday by Prime Minister Dr Man Mohan Singh, a beleaguered leader amidst his government’s multi-billion dollar 2-G spectrum scam which has taken away much of the sheen from his gentle appeal. One can leave aside most part of his lecture, except one glaring reality “that while C. V. Raman won the Nobel Prize eighty years ago for the Raman Effect, most of the instruments available in India today using this principle are imported.”


Why is it so? Dr Singh has not ant remedy for this. He only mentioned the malady that that was not an isolated example. "Many of our outstanding scientific discoveries had been converted into marketable products by technologists and firms based abroad."


So what is wrong with India? Everybody knows that its political culture is the real problem, which breeds, supports and cover up corruption. The culture of corruption has seeped deep inside the educational institutions also and politicians have been active participants of all this sordid happening. If political culture remains as it is, there is no hope that Indian science education would get any major change.  


What Are the Solutions?

What has been offered as solutions? Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal, as is his wont, blared out an agenda, which he thinks can make India a "hot spot of innovation". The agenda will include long term academia-industry collaborative relationships with open access to and resources free of intellectual property entanglements; better integration of corporate with higher educational and research institutions, encourage multidisciplinary collaboration among business, government, academia and R&D, thereby creating an environment that supports technological development. Definitely these are fanciful words which an illustrious lawyer politician can always utter.


It will take genuine strenuous efforts and long time to bring into practice even a few of these things as spelling out an agenda is one thing but to do concrete work is a diffrent ball game which requires real sincerity and sense of commitment.

Pallava Bagla gets David Perlman Award

Questioning Rewards
Indian  Journalist




By Vinod Varshney


A dedicated science journalist from India Pallava Bagla has won the American Geophysical Union's “David Perlman Award” for Excellence in Science Journalism for his revelation of a shocking fraud related to the impact of climate change on Himalayan glaciers. His story not only put the Nobel Prize winning organization United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to shame but also raked a hotly contested international controversy which took many months to settle and finally the people responsible for the fraud had to lick the dust.


This is what good journalism can do and this is what is needed more and more. The Perlman Award selection committee rightly applauded Pallava, saying “ His articles serve as a reminder to journalists to question sources, to think harder about the agendas and ideas of those people about whom they are reporting, and to stop the steamroller of opinions or ideas when the facts just don't back them up.”


This is not the first time that Pallava Bagla created by his articles ripples among scientists and scientific institutions. He had for example in 1998 questioned the claims of Indian nuclear scientists about the intensity of the Pokhran II nuclear blasts. His doubts were never contradicted by the Indian nuclear establishment though they became a hotly debated issue internationally among scientists and dipomats both, after publication of his article on this issue in the US magazine Science.


Its echo rang during the Indo-US Nuclear Deal when many politicians who were opposing the deal tooth and nail gave the argument that India’s thermo-nuclear test was not a complete success and India needed to do further tests for the sake of developing an effective nuclear deterrent against China.


To question official information is Pallava’s journalistic trait which got honed by Science magazine which has rigorous standards. Had he remained with Science Reporter, a government of India publication, where he started his journalistic career, he would certainly have become the editor of the magazine, but would have hardly been able to do any of the stories which have brought him laurels today.


Hope the Government of India will honour him with Padma Shree sooner than later.

Prof Ingrid Daubechies

Woman Mathematician

to Provide Leadership

Reports Vinod Varshney

First time a woman mathematician Prof. Ingrid Daubechies would provide leadership to international cooperation in mathematics. She has been elected the president of the International Mathematical Union, an august body of mathematicians established nine decades ago.

The IMU elected Tuesday its Executive Committee also for the term 2011–14. It has one Indian also Vasudevan Srinivas.

Prof. Daubechies’ election is doubly encouraging as the first International Conference of Women Mathematicians was inaugurated in Hyderabad on 17 August. Besides, she is the first woman Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, New Jersey. She is also the first woman to receive the National Academy of Sciences Medal in Mathematics (2000).

Prof. Daubechies is a mathematician and a physicist and works in the Department of Mathematics and in the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. Born in Belgium in 1954, she is now settled in the US (1987 onwards) after her marriage.


In her election speech, Prof. Daubechies expressed happiness that pure and applied mathematicians were interacting more with each other. “I am very interested in how emerging countries develop mathematics…There is enormous potential in young people...In a sense, mathematics is easier for an emerging country to develop than physics or chemistry because you do not need to have a big layout in materials and labs and so on and lot more money. In mathematics, once you build a nucleus who can work together, then the sky is the limit!”


Next Congress would be in Korea


The next International Congress of Mathematicians will be hosted by Korea. The decision was taken by voting at the 16th General Assembly meeting held in Bangalore. Hyungju Park, a member of the Korean delegation in his presentation at the General Assembly told, ‘In IMO (International Mathematical Olympiad), Korea is now steadily ranking third or fourth... mathematics is becoming a very popular subject in Korea. When kids enter college, they take a college entrance exam and they choose their majors. The second most popular area in major universities right now is mathematics. This is something we didn’t expect before. So definitely math is becoming a very popular subject and we think that our ICM efforts also contributed to that. We are telling young students that math is a fascinating subject and there are things that are happening.’


“The relation between the math community and industry is also becoming very strong. Many young students are getting interested in mathematics especially due to TV coverage. Seventy percent of IMO medalists in Korea are choosing math as their college majors – most of them will go on to get Ph Ds in mathematics.”

First Leelavati Prize Goes to Simon Singh

SIMON SINGH

WINS FIRST

LEELAVATI

AWARD


By Vinod Varshney

Simon Lehna Singh, physicist-turned British author of Indian origin has been chosen for the first Leelavati Award that has been instituted for outstanding contribution to public outreach in mathematics by an individual.


This international award had been instituted on the name of the 12th century Sanskrit book “Leelavati” dealing with arithmetic and algebra.


In medieval India mathematics used to be popularized and taught in verse. The superb example is the treatise “Leelavati”. The book posed problems in verse and also gave hints for solutions.


Leelavati, a Daughter of India


Leelavati is told to be the daughter of 12th century mathematician Bhaskaracharya who wanted to teach mathematics to his daughter. He did so by composing this treatise


One can imagine how lucid it would have been teaching and learning of mathematics during that time though the education was allowed to the select few. Compare it with how mathematics is taught in a boring fashion today by incompetent teachers in India.


One may ask what Simon Lehna Singh has done to deserve this ten lakh rupees prize? He actually tried using latest media TV and Film to do a little bit exactly the same what Bhaskaracharya had done eight hundred years ago—popularize mathematics by Leelavati.


Why No Indian Living in India Becomes a Simon
Question however in India will crop up why any Simon Lehna Singh could not grow up here. Obviously the current money-minting culture of media is to blame for this. It does not care to create opportunities of such kind of serious work.

Simon, whose parents emigrated from Punjab to Britain in 1950, like millions thronging UK now, in 1990 joined BBC’s ‘Science and Features’ department. And it made all the difference. In 1996 he directed a documentary Fermat’s Last Theorem.

This was after the acclaimed solution, by the British mathematician Andrew Wiles in 1995, of one of the world’s most challenging problems in mathematics – the proof of the famous conjecture made by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637.

The documentary exploration of the celebrated problem also formed the subject for Singh’s first book, Fermat’s Last Theorem (1997). This was perhaps the first-ever popular book on mathematics to become a best-seller.


Do Indians Know Leelavati

Many Indians, including IT geeks who create new softwares in thousands of companies world over, do not know what Leelavati is.

This work of Bhaskaracharya was also translated into Persian and was influenced mathematicians in West Asia.

The Leelavati award will be given away at the upcoming 2010 International Congress of Mathematicians to be held at Hyderabad, India, during 19–27 August.

The Great Maths Show By Women

Great Maths


Show by


Women





By Vinod Varshney

First Time in August this year top women mathematicians from all over the world would assemble in Hyderabad. The occasion is a two day International Conference of Women Mathematicians just before the most prestigious International Congress of Mathematicians.


Only recently women have started asserting their place in the field of mathematics which has been reflecting in girls achieving notable success in the International Math Olympiad. During last twenty five years many girls have almost reached up to the top, remained behind just by a whisker.


Hyderabad women conference would not only raise the self esteem of women mathematicians, but also bring forth some issues which keep women laggards in this field. It is said no women could get Fields Medal, considered as good as Nobel Prize, because it is given to mathematicians who are under forty years.


Since women also have to have children and look after them before 40, this award becomes non-existent for them.

Need to Encourage Girls in Maths

A great need is being felt that girls be encouraged to opt mathematics as a career and research option. If this happens then within a decade perhaps some woman may be able to win Fields medal. Recently the Abel prize has been introduced which is also considered as important as Nobel Prize. Only nine mathematicians have won this so far, but no woman.


No Indian man also has won any of these two most prestigious awards given for great research in mathematics. This raises a question if ever the situation would change in India. Everybody knows that quality research does not take place in India. Indian Universities even do not care to update their curriculum for decades. Bright students remain far behind because of this callousness of Indian academicians. So much so teachers in Delhi University are unashamedly fighting against even introduction of semester system.

We Had Ramanujan Once

Average Indians feel proud only in telling that we had once Ramanujan whose problems no mathematician in the world has been able to solve so far rather than solve them themselves if this is a great mathematical issue.


It is great that International Conference of Women Mathematicians is taking place in India. It is the  European Women in Mathematics that had taken initiative in this matter. Prof (Ms) Shobha Madan of IIT-Kanpur is championing the cause in India.


In India we had last year seen a national conference of women mathematicians at the Jawahar Lal Nehru University, Delhi. But it had mixed attendance, almost equal number of men mathematicians. The Hyderabad conference is expected to be truly a women show on a grand scale.

Bhama Srinivasan

The job of activating women mathematicians around the globe started much earlier by forming the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1971. An American Indian Bhama Srinivasan also had been its President during 1981-83. Bhama Srinivasan, born and grew up in Chennai, got the spark from her grandfather who was an amateur practitioner of mathematics.

More by the Same Author:

http://scimedia.blogspot.com/2010/03/india-gave-zero-now-time-to-give-hero.html

http://scimedia.blogspot.com/2010/07/history-of-mathematics.html

http://scimedia.blogspot.com/2010/06/will-one-chess-player-be-equal-to-40.html

History of Indian Mathematics

India Gave Much

More Than Zero

Writes Vinod Varshney

India not only gave the concept of zero to the world, but influenced many foreign mathematical traditions by its disocoveries. Much was not known until Radha Charan Gupta proved this by his immaculate research.

For his pioneering work he will be honoured at the International Congress of Mathematicians being held in Hyderabad during August 19-27, 2010. He is the first Indian to get this distinction--Kenneth O. May Prize.

Radha Charan Gupta, currently engaged in extensive research work at Ganita Bharati Institute in his native city Jhansi (Uttar Pradesh, India). It has been acknowledged that no scholar in the twentieth century has done more to advance widespread understanding of the development of Indian mathematics.

Gupta Expounded Cosmological Theories Also

He skillfully analyzed many unknown ingenious mathematical formulas in Sanskrit. He published several papers on the remarkable mathematical discoveries of the Jaina tradition, many of which had been almost inaccessible to anyone except specialists in Prakrit (an ancient Indian language). He also expounded many Jaina, Buddhist or Hindu cosmological theories.

Prof. Gupta's major contributions include work on the history of development of trigonometry in India. He had been the President of the Association of Mathematics Teachers of India since 1994 until recently. He also founded the journal Ganita Bharati.

Radha Charan Gupta was the gold medalist in the M.Sc. mathematics examination at Lucknow in 1957, and earned a Ph.D. in the history of mathematics from Ranchi University in 1971. He became a professor of mathematics at Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi in 1982.

Why Indians Do Not Get Felds Medal ?

Mr Gupta's research work is a superb example of objectivity. He maintains, “ Different cultures, including the Indian, have contributed immensely in the development of mathematical knowledge, and it should be recognized by all.”

Many would be surprized to know that he contributed some 500 original international grade research articles, yet even today he does not use any modern amenity like computer and internet. Considering his working conditions, his contribution is even more creditable.

Gupta Period Was the Golden Period for Indian Maths

“Indian mathematics grew maximum in the Gupta Period, dubbed as Golden Period of India, and many great names like Aryabhat and Bhaskaracharya emerged. Later for a few centuries there was lull, but again between 14th and 17th century Indian Mathematics grew in South India and such great names as Madhav and Neelkanth emerged, whose contributions have much connection with modern mathematics.”, told Prof Gupta in reply to a question.

He said, “There is no dearth of talent in India, but working environment here is peculiar and the one who protected oneself from this, could contribute something. This is the main reason why any Indian so far could not get the Felds Medal, considered as the Nobel Prize in mathematics."