ICTS

The preamble of the Indian Constitution is, among other solemn commitments, a pledge to secure for all Indians social, economic and political justice and equality of status and opportunity. In spite of the difficulties in measuring inequality in India arising from the paucity of data and the compounding effects of social inequality on economic inequality, earlier work has documented the very high, and rising, levels of economic inequality in India. Inequalities in India – whether we evaluate them from the lens of food, education, wealth or digital technologies – are still high and rising. This talk focuses on the lack of recognition of the scale of the problem, especially among the rich/ elite in India. Popular misconceptions about the country's so-called middle class only obfuscate this reality. Far too many, in the top 20 per cent and even the top 1 per cent, falsely believe they are 'middle class'. This widespread misperception contributes to the lack of policy action, including action on fairer taxation and other redistributive policies in the country. Not just because it shields the rich/ elite from the stark inequality that persists but more critically because it leads to complacency among policy makers and hinders true progress towards creating a more equitable and decent society.

In this largely non-technical talk, I shall discuss the importance of probability theory as a discipline, describe some fundamental results and questions of interest, and provide some historical context.

Human activities have considerably altered biodiversity as well as the ecological processes underlying these patterns, resulting in both local and region-wide extinction. Birds, a diverse taxon, have offered a valuable opportunity to understand how biodiversity responds to climate change, habitat alterations and ecological degradation. Based on over 25 years of experience working on the problem of bird species survival in human-dominated landscapes, in varied geographies such as Sariska Tiger Reserve, Corbett Landscape and the Western Himalayas, Ghazala Shahabuddin will discuss the process of field-based ecological research: from natural history observations, hypothesis development, data collection and analysis and drawing inferences from ecological data. She will especially delve into the features that distinguish ecological research from lab-based science. She will discuss not only the difficulties of ecology, but equally, the joys of field-based ecology, that can be as rewarding as it is challenging.

In this talk, we will understand the concept of multi-threading, a common technique to speed up computation by parallelizing it on multiple cores in a computer. We will also understand some interesting problems that arise when synchronizing across multiple threads in a program, using simple puzzle-like examples.

‘Luck’ has always been seen as a vague and difficult-to-quantify aspect of sport. Commentators and players often talk about it, but in imprecise terms, putting an approximate ‘gut-feel’ value to its cost to the opposing team. (‘The dropped catch of Virat Kohli cost England at least 30 runs’)

In a collaboration with IIT-Madras, a small team at ESPNcricinfo worked on this aspect as part of a suite of new, in-depth metrics which would help understand better the nuances of T20 cricket. Luck Index attempted to define these specific ‘lucky events’ along with the team that benefited, and then work out the value of that event based on putting together an alternative narrative of what would have transpired in that team innings without that ‘lucky event’.

Luck Index was part of a set of three metrics developed by ESPNcricinfo along with IIT-Madras, the other two metrics being the Forecaster and Smart Stats. The Forecaster is a predictive tool which forecasters team score and win percentages for each team based on the current match situation, while Smart Stats gives impact values to each batting and bowling performance based on detailed match context inputs. These metrics have helped in a better and more nuanced understanding of T20 cricket.

In this talk, we will explore the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in modern banking. Since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI technology has seen a rapid evolution. This rapid development has led to a surge in interest and adoption across various sectors. The presentation will explore the mathematical foundations and AI techniques that drive innovative solutions in the banking sector. We will look at how AI-powered solutions have reduced scams and frauds, the application of generative AI in enhancing customer messaging and accelerated decision making.

Counting the number of divisors of an integer is an interesting question that can be approached in multiple ways. We will explore this question and the multiple streams of thoughts and techniques that originate from it.