Professor Mahesh Kakde of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru has been named the winner of the 2026 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries for his work in algebraic number theory. The International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) and the International Mathematical Union (IMU) announced the award in late September 2026. With this honour, Kakde has become the fifth Indian to receive the prize, which carries a cash award of $10,000.
What Is the Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians?
The Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries is an annual international award for outstanding mathematical research done in a developing country. The ICTP and the IMU give the prize to a researcher from a developing country who is less than 45 years of age on 31 December of the award year. Researchers working in any branch of the mathematical sciences are eligible.
The Ramanujan Prize was first awarded in 2005. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), the Niels Henrik Abel Memorial Fund and the International Mathematical Union (IMU) instituted the prize. The Abel Fund supported the prize till 2012. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India then funded the prize from 2014 to 2023, when it was called the DST-ICTP-IMU Ramanujan Prize. Since 2024, the ICTP and the IMU have jointly administered the prize. No award was made in 2023.
The Ramanujan Prize is given in the field of mathematics. The ICTP and the IMU present the prize to support research done under difficult conditions. The selection committee looks at the quality of the research and also the background of the candidate and the environment in which the work was done. Preference goes to a researcher who has achieved distinction despite challenging conditions. The committee consists of eminent mathematicians chosen jointly by the ICTP and the IMU.
The winner of the Ramanujan Prize receives a cash award of $10,000 and an invitation to visit the ICTP to receive the prize and deliver a lecture. During the DST funding period, the cash award was $15,000, with the money meant to support further research. The prize is usually given to one person in a year. It can be shared equally if two or more persons have contributed to the same body of work.
Mahesh Kakde: 2026 Winner and His Work in Algebraic Number Theory
Professor Mahesh Kakde teaches in the Department of Mathematics at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. The ICTP cited his important contributions to algebraic number theory, the branch of mathematics that studies whole numbers and the solutions of equations using deep algebraic structures. His prize recognises fundamental results on noncommutative Iwasawa theory and outstanding work on the Gross-Stark and Brumer-Stark conjectures, with implications for Hilbert’s 12th problem.
Algebraic number theory studies properties of integers and number systems built from them. Iwasawa theory studies how arithmetic objects behave in infinite towers of number fields, which are larger number systems built step by step over smaller ones. Noncommutative Iwasawa theory extends this study to settings where the order of operations matters. The Brumer-Stark and Gross-Stark conjectures, first proposed in the 1970s and early 1980s, predict a precise link between special values of L-functions, which are complex analytic functions that encode arithmetic information, and the construction of special units in number fields. Kakde, jointly with Samit Dasgupta, proved the Brumer-Stark conjecture away from the prime 2 in 2020, and full proofs were completed in 2023. This work helps build explicit class fields, which is central to Hilbert’s 12th problem, one of the 23 famous problems listed by German mathematician David Hilbert in 1900 seeking explicit construction of abelian extensions of any base number field.
Kakde was born in Akola, Maharashtra in 1983. He earned a B.Math (Hons) from the Indian Statistical Institute, Bengaluru in 2004 and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge in 2005. He completed his PhD at Cambridge in 2008 under noted number theorist John Coates. After that he taught and researched at Princeton University, University College London and King’s College London, where he rose from Lecturer to Reader between 2011 and 2019. He joined IISc as Professor in August 2019.
Kakde had already received wide recognition before the 2026 prize. He won the Infosys Prize in Mathematical Sciences in 2022 and the Vigyan Yuva Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award in 2024. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians and was named among Asian Scientist 100 in 2023. His election as Ramanujan Prize winner continues a strong Indian presence in this award.
| Year | Indian Winner | Affiliation at Time of Award |
|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Sujatha Ramdorai | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research |
| 2015 | Amalendu Krishna | Tata Institute of Fundamental Research |
| 2018 | Ritabrata Munshi | Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai |
| 2021 | Neena Gupta | Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata |
| 2026 | Mahesh Kakde | Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru |
The 2024 prize went to Ruochuan Liu of China and the 2025 prize to Claudio Munoz of Chile, which shows the global pool from which the 2026 Indian winner was chosen.
Awarding Institutions: What Does ICTP Stand For?
ICTP stands for the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. The ICTP is a research centre for physical and mathematical sciences located in Trieste, Italy. Pakistani Nobel Laureate Mohammad Abdus Salam founded the centre in 1964 together with Italian physicist Paolo Budinich. The centre works under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The ICTP was created to stop brain drain from developing countries and to keep scientists from the South connected to global research. The centre hosts about 6,000 scientists every year and keeps links with scientific communities in more than 170 countries. Its core mission is to advance science in the developing world through training, research and international cooperation. The centre was renamed after Abdus Salam in 1997, a year after his death.
The second awarding body is the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the global organisation for cooperation in mathematics. The IMU works with the ICTP to appoint the eminent mathematicians who form the Ramanujan Prize selection committee. The third partner in the earlier phase was the Department of Science and Technology (DST) under the Ministry of Science and Technology of India. The DST funded the prize money and joined the administration between 2014 and 2023. The winner is now invited to Trieste to receive the prize and give a lecture.
ICTP Ramanujan Prize vs SASTRA Ramanujan Prize
Two different Indian linked prizes carry the name Ramanujan, and readers often mix them up. The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize is distinct from the ICTP Ramanujan Prize that Mahesh Kakde has won. The SASTRA prize is given by the Shanmugha Arts, Science, Technology and Research Academy (SASTRA), a university based in Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu. The SASTRA University instituted the prize in 2005.
The SASTRA Ramanujan Prize honours outstanding contributions in areas of mathematics influenced by Srinivasa Ramanujan in a broad sense. It is given to mathematicians not exceeding 32 years of age. The age limit is fixed at 32 because Ramanujan lived for only 32 years, from 1887 to 1920. The prize carries a cash award of $10,000 with a citation. It is presented each year around 22 December, the birthday of Ramanujan, at the Srinivasa Ramanujan Centre of SASTRA University in Kumbakonam, which is regarded as Ramanujan’s hometown. The 2025 SASTRA prize was announced for Alexander Smith of Northwestern University, USA.
| Feature | ICTP Ramanujan Prize | SASTRA Ramanujan Prize |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries | SASTRA Ramanujan Prize |
| Given by | ICTP and IMU (DST funded 2014 to 2023) | SASTRA University, Kumbakonam |
| Field | Any branch of mathematical sciences | Work influenced by Ramanujan, mainly number theory and related areas |
| Who can receive | Researcher from a developing country who did outstanding research in a developing country | Mathematician from any country |
| Age limit | Less than 45 years on 31 December of award year | Not exceeding 32 years |
| Prize money | $10,000 at present ($15,000 during DST funding period) | $10,000 |
| First awarded | 2005 | 2005 |
| 2026 winner in focus | Mahesh Kakde, IISc Bengaluru | Separate cycle announced in December |
Past SASTRA winners include Manjul Bhargava, Akshay Venkatesh, Peter Scholze and James Maynard, several of whom later won the Fields Medal. This record has made the SASTRA prize one of the most watched honours for very young mathematicians, while the ICTP prize remains the key honour for mid career researchers working in the developing world.
What Is the Ramanujan Fellowship?
The Ramanujan Fellowship is different from both Ramanujan Prizes. The fellowship is a national scheme to bring brilliant Indian scientists and engineers working abroad back to India for research. The Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), now part of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) framework under the Department of Science and Technology, operates the scheme.
The Ramanujan Fellowship is open to brilliant Indian or Indian origin scientists and engineers who are working abroad at the time of nomination and are below 40 years of age. Applicants must hold a higher degree such as a PhD in Science or Engineering, Masters in Engineering or Technology or MD in Medicine with a strong record of publications and recognition. The fellowship is scientist specific and highly selective. Fellows can choose to work in any scientific institution or university in India and can also receive regular research grants from Indian science agencies.
The fellowship runs for five years and is not extendable. Each fellow receives a consolidated monthly fellowship of ₹1,35,000 including House Rent Allowance, a research grant of ₹7 lakh per year and ₹60,000 per year as overhead to the host institute. Nominations for the 2026 cycle are received through the year. Unlike a one time prize, the fellowship provides salary style support to build a long term research career in India.
Srinivasa Ramanujan: What Is He Famous For?
Srinivasa Ramanujan (22 December 1887 to 26 April 1920) was India’s greatest modern mathematician. He is famous for extraordinary contributions to number theory, infinite series, continued fractions, partitions and mock theta functions. Working largely by self study from G. S. Carr’s Synopsis of Elementary Results in Pure Mathematics, he compiled nearly 3,900 results, mostly identities and equations, many of which opened new areas of research.
Ramanujan was born in Erode and grew up in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. He failed non mathematics examinations and worked as a clerk in Madras. He sent letters with over 100 theorems to British mathematicians in 1913. G. H. Hardy of Cambridge recognised his genius and brought him to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1914. Ramanujan earned a Bachelor of Science by Research in 1916 for work on highly composite numbers. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1918 at age 30 and became the first Indian Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge in October 1918.
Ramanujan did not receive a Nobel Prize, and he could not have received one for mathematics. There is no Nobel Prize in mathematics. The Fields Medal, first awarded in 1936, is often treated as its closest equivalent in the subject. Ramanujan died at 32 in Madras in 1920, long before many present day mathematics prizes were created. His birthday, 22 December, is observed in India as National Mathematics Day.
The most loved story about Ramanujan explains the Hardy Ramanujan number 1729. When Hardy visited the ill Ramanujan in hospital and said his taxi number 1729 looked dull, Ramanujan replied that it is the smallest number that can be written as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. The two forms are 1729 equals 1 cubed plus 12 cubed, and also 9 cubed plus 10 cubed. Numbers with this property are now called taxicab numbers. The Ramanujan Journal was later established to publish research in areas influenced by his work, and his lost notebook, found in 1976 at Trinity College, still guides research.
Key Takeaways
- Mahesh Kakde of IISc Bengaluru won the 2026 Ramanujan Prize for Young Mathematicians from Developing Countries for work in algebraic number theory.
- Kakde is the fifth Indian winner after Sujatha Ramdorai (2006), Amalendu Krishna (2015), Ritabrata Munshi (2018) and Neena Gupta (2021).
- The ICTP Ramanujan Prize is given by the ICTP and IMU to a researcher from a developing country aged less than 45 years and carries $10,000.
- The prize was first awarded in 2005, was funded by India’s DST from 2014 to 2023, and no award was made in 2023.
- The separate SASTRA Ramanujan Prize is given by SASTRA University to mathematicians aged 32 or below for work influenced by Ramanujan.
- Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 to 1920) is famous for number theory and the number 1729, which equals 1 cubed plus 12 cubed and 9 cubed plus 10 cubed.
