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Professor M.C. Puri was born on 15th
August, 1939 in Delhi.
Professor M.C.Puri completed his B.Sc (Hons.) Mathematics in 1960 from
Hansraj College University of Delhi, followed by M.Sc. Mathematics in 1962 with
first position in the University of Delhi. Professor Puri subsequently obtained
a doctorate degree in Operations Research in 1972 from Delhi University under the guidance of Professor Kanti Swarup.
Professor Puri served at Hansraj College till 1984 and he was also engaged in post
graduate teaching at University of Delhi. He then joined the Indian institute of Technology, Delhi where he served
till 2004. He was appointed as Emeritus Fellow of IITD form July 1, 2002 to June 30, 2004.
One of the popular undergraduate courses he used
to teach was linear optimization.
Professor Puri was engaged in multifarious academic
activities during his career. As a guide, he supervised thirteen Ph.D. theses,
nine M.Phil dissertations, six M.Tech. projects and eleven M.Sc. projects. He
also authored many research articles in various journals of international
repute. He was the examiner of theses and dissertations of various universities
and the other IITs as well.
He was a life member of the
Operational Research Society of India (ORSI) which is a national forum set up with the objective to promote the applications of Operations Research (OR) and to provide a forum to OR scientists to enhance their
knowledge through the activities such as seminars, lecture meetings and workshops
for student members, which are organized by various chapters of ORSI.
The ORSI is one of the national
member of Asia Pacific Operational Research Societies (APORS) which in turn is affiliated
to the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS).
Professor Puri attended the annual
conference ORSI every year since as early as 1973 and had been on the editorial
board of Opsearch (an official journal of ORSI). He was actively
involved with ORSI and contributed to it in
various ways. He delivered invited talks on numerous
topics, been a member of the organizing committee for many years, was involved
in prize decision committees and chaired various sessions.
He successfully
organized three international conferences of ORSI for the Delhi chapter - in
1991, 1995 and in 2003.
The
2003 conference was the Sixth International Conference of APORS ‘APORS 2003’, with
the theme ‘Operational Research: Emerging Paradigms for Information Technology’.
The conference was held during December 8-11, 2003. During the course of this
conference eight invited talks by eminent speakers, five doctoral theses
presentations and forty seven technical parallel sessions were held on various
topics of Operations Research. Proceeding of this conference, which contained
seventy-one refereed articles were published in two volumes by Allied
Publishers edited by Prof. M.R. Rao and Prof. M.C. Puri, in 2004.
During
this conference Prof Puri instituted an award in the memory of Professor N.K.
Jaiswal (past editor of Opsearch) for best theoretical paper.
Prof
Puri was the also the guest editor of the Special Issue of Omega,
the International Journal of Management Sciences Volume 33(5), 2005 on selected
papers from APORS 2003 Conference.
He was a member of Working Group of Generalized Convexity
and Monotonicity (WGGCM) comprising of members from forty four
countries with an interest in generalizations of the classical concept of a
convex function and monotonicity and its role in areas such as mathematical
programming, management science, engineering, applied mathematics and
statistics.
Prof Puri was also a member of the Pacific Optimization
Research Activity group (POP) with
members form forty countries which was set up to promote optimization research
activities in the Pacific Region.
Prof Puri was one of the founder
members of the Mathematical Programming Group, (MPG) started by
retired Professor R.N. Kaul, Department of Mathematics, University of Delhi in 1972. This group, comprising of researchers from various colleges of Delhi University, IITD and Indian Institute of Science Delhi meets even today every Wednesday
afternoon at Delhi University to attend a talk by invited speakers or a
presentation by one of the researchers of the group. Professor Puri was one of
the members who attended this weekly seminar since its inception.
Professor Puri was a gem of a human being, and was deeply
respected and loved by everyone who interacted with him. He was a very humble
and modest person who always loved and encouraged his colleagues and students
(who were very dear to him) to perform their best in every field, especially in
the field of academics.
The sudden demise of Professor
Puri is a great loss not only to his family, students and colleagues but also
to the entire Operations Research Community of India.
Married to Maths – cover story in ‘The Week’
Publications by
Prof M. C. Puri:
Number of papers published in Refereed Journals : 78 (Abroad 53, India 25)
Number of publications since 1995 : 21
Doctoral Ph.D Theses supervised : 13
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