New York: EAM Jaishankar inaugurates special exhibition on India's contribution to Mathematics at UN HQ

New York [US], May 12 : External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar inaugurated a special exhibition titled 'From Shunya to Ananta (Zero to Infinity) The Indian Civilisation's Contribution to Mathematics' at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

The exhibition, which is organised by the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, sets out to document what it describes as the Indian civilisation's contribution to mathematics.

Speaking at the inauguration of the exhibition, EAM Jaishankar hoped that it would heighten awareness and spark a debate about the richness of the inherently pluralistic world and help cast aside prejudices and assumptions about the embrace of technology in the current era.

"This exhibition is a reminder that mathematics is a universal language and its spread has served and continues to serve a global good", he said.

Noting how the United Nations is the most established platform for international cooperation, he said, "We can draw on that message in its quest to advocate closer international collaboration."

He recalled the AI Impact Summit held in New Delhi earlier this year, which sent a message of inclusivity and larger access to emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence.

"We can already perceive where and how digital public infrastructure has delivered good governance and social benefits. The recent AI Impact Summit in India has also sent a strong message that creativity and innovation cannot be limited to a few", he said.

EAM Jaishankar saw the exhibition along with his wife, Kyoko Jaishankar; Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni, Permanent Representative of India to the UN, and world-renowned mathematician and a recipient of Padma Bhushan in 2015, Manjul Bhargava.

Last year, during an exhibition in New Delhi on India's mathematical contributions, Manjul Bhargava spoke toabout India's indispensable contributions to mathematics, which include the number system, zero, quadratic equations, negative numbers, the first exact formula of Pi, sine and cosine, among others.

"Lots of fundamental discoveries of mathematics happened in India, which have influenced global mathematics. The idea of zero came from yoga- to achieve 'shunyata'. So the ideas of mathematics came from social science, philosophy," Bhargava said.

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