Mathematician Mahesh Kakde, a professor at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, has received the 2026 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries. He is the fifth Indian to win the award.
The prize, awarded every year since 2005 by the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the International Mathematical Union, recognises Kakde’s results in algebraic number theory, in particular in noncommutative Iwasawa theory.
The committee also highlighted his work on the Gross–Stark and Brumer–Stark conjectures, with implications for Hilbert’s 12th problem, one of the 23 great problems in mathematics set out by David Hilbert in 1900.
Kakde worked at King’s College London before joining IISc in 2019 and had already received the Infosys Prize in Mathematical Sciences in 2022. The Ramanujan Prize is worth 10,000 dollars and honours the celebrated Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan.
