International Congress of Mathematicians 2010 (ICM2010) was held during August 19 to 27, 2010 at Hyderabad, India. During this congress, a meeting of MTTS participants, resource people and its well-wishers was called on August 23, 2010 by Prof. S. Kumaresan, the director of MTTS Programme. This meeting was attended by more than 100 people including some foreign delegates. There were 60 MTTS participants present during this meeting. However at least 15-20 past participants who were attending the ICM could not participate in the meeting. Thus there was a large contingent of MTTS participants during ICM, this speaks volumes of contribution of this programme to Mathematics in India. MTTS is proud to say that its alumni is the largest group among the various groups except the groups based country-wise. Many eminent mathematicians like Prof. M. S. Raghunathan, Prof. M. S. Narasimhan, Prof. V. S. Sunder, Prof. Somesh Bagchi, Prof. Nadkarni were also present during this meeting and put forward their views.
Prof. Kumaresan gave a brief introduction of this programme and expressed his concerns about finding dedicated faculty for this programme. Contribution by people from elite research institutes, who are the main beneficiaries of MTTS have been almost non existent. Professor Kumaresan requested for more participation from them. He made an appeal to the alumni, mathematicians of elite research institutes and university and college teachers to come forward and contribute to this programme as a resource person or as a tutor at least once in three years. Many of them have shown their willingness to the same. He also made an appeal to come forward and host this programme at their institute/university. He explained about the requirements for hosting such a programme. Many people from different places were very keen to host this programme and extend their support. Since MTTS cannot reach to every nook and corner of this vast country, people should start at least one week programme at local levels at different places in order to motivate students. To conduct this kind of programmes, they may write to the director for financial and academic support. He also said that some of the MTTS faculty may be deputed so as train the students using MTTS methodology. During this programme, Kerala chapter, MT & NP was also discussed. It has helped and motivated students in that region and Prof. Ramachandran of Calicut University thanked the MTTS resource people like Prof. S. Kumaresan, Prof. A. J. Jayanthan, Prof. Somasundram etc who have been contributing to this programme. Many MTTS participants who have finished their Ph.D. have shown willingness to come to the programme and contribute. The meeting lasted about an hour. The attendees were informed about MTTS presentation by Ajit Kumar during the ICM.
MTTS participants, resource people and its well-wishers were also called for a group photograph on August 25, 2010. MTTS DVDs, poster and souvenir were displayed in the National Board for Higher Mathematics (NBHM) booth. About 200 DVDs were freely distributed. There was more demand for the DVD’s than we expected.
A short presentation about the various aspects of MTTS programme was made by Dr. Ajit Kumar on August 27 in the mathematics education section of ICM. It was attended by many delegates and appreciated very well by all of them.
