Everyone talks about the "prestige" and the "funding," but nobody tells you that actually using that money is like trying to win a fight with a brick wall. If you’re a research aspirant, you probably think you’ll spend your time doing, you know... research. In reality, Its 40% researcher and 60% clerk/accountant.

The "L1" .... If you need to buy a specific sensor for your setup, you can’t just buy the one that works. Because of government "L1" rules, the institute is basically forced to buy from the lowest bidder. So, you end up with some cheap, knock-off version from a random vendor in Noida who has no idea how to support the tech. It breaks in two weeks, and you’re back to square one.

india's math olympiad performance has been quietly getting really good. 4th at IMO 2024 — four gold medals — which is the best we've done since we started participating in 1989. that's not luck, that's years of building a selection and training pipeline through HBCSE. and then 7th again in 2025 with a national record score. these are high school kids. the talent is clearly there.

TIFR's school of mathematics in mumbai does work that genuinely competes internationally. i'm not being patriotic here — i mean people there publish in annals, inventiones, JAMS. number theory, algebraic geometry, ergodic theory — the faculty are serious. IMSc in chennai is excellent. ISI kolkata has a history going back decades. CMI's undergraduate programme produces students who regularly get into top 10 global phd programmes.

the IISERs were a genuinely good decision by whoever made that call in 2006. seven institutes, proper research culture from the undergrad level, students who actually read papers before graduating. compared to what the situation was 20 years ago it's a real improvement.

the money situation is embarrassing. TIFR postdoc pays ₹47,000–54,000 a month. that is your salary if you have a phd and you're doing research at what is supposed to be our flagship math institute. in mumbai. have you tried renting in mumbai on ₹47k? a phd stipend at the best institutes is ₹31,000–37,000. meanwhile india's R&D spending as a share of GDP has actually gone DOWN — from around 0.9% in 2008 to 0.64% in 2021. china is at 2.4%. south korea is nearly 5%. we are going the wrong direction.

i'm not saying this to be dramatic. i'm saying this because i have watched extremely talented people — people who genuinely love mathematics, who would have been happy to stay — do the calculation (ironically) and leave. a us postdoc in math pays around $60k a year. that's roughly 50 lakh rupees. the gap isn't bridgeable by "passion for the subject."

there's a study that found over 73% of indian researchers who move abroad never come back. never. and the ones who leave aren't random — they're disproportionately from the good institutions, the ones we spent public money training. it's not brain drain as a metaphor. it's a literal, measurable, ongoing transfer of human capital that we funded and then gifted to the west.

the structural problems that don't get talked about enough

most IIT math departments are service departments. their primary job, implicitly or explicitly, is to make sure engineering students pass calculus. the faculty are evaluated on teaching loads that would make it very hard for anyone to do deep research. this isn't anyone's fault individually — it's how the system is set up. but it means that "math research at IITs" is often a very different thing from math research at TIFR or IMSc, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

the postdoc to faculty pipeline is basically a bottleneck. TIFR hires a few people a year. ISI a few more. IMSc a few. the IITs and IISERs have more positions but the hiring process is slow, political in the usual ways, and the positions aren't always in pure math areas. a person finishing a strong phd in, say, analytic number theory or low-dimensional topology faces a genuinely bleak domestic market. the options are: leave for a foreign postdoc (and probably not come back), take a position somewhere where you'll spend 18 hours a week teaching and maybe get two hours of research time if lucky, or just leave academia.

and then there's the JEE thing. i'll probably get flak for this but i'll say it anyway: years of JEE prep does something to how people think about math. JEE trains you to be fast, to pattern-match, to know which trick applies to which problem type. that's a specific skill. it's not the same skill as sitting with a problem for three weeks and not knowing if you're on the right track. a lot of students arrive at IISERs and CMI genuinely shocked that math can involve extended confusion and that this is normal and fine. the olympiad pipeline is a partial corrective but it reaches maybe a few hundred students seriously at the national level. JEE reaches millions.

the weird paradox that nobody wants to say out loud

india is good at producing mathematicians. like, actually good. the olympiad results, the quality of graduates from CMI and IISERs, the names — ramanujan obviously, but also harish-chandra, c.s. seshadri, m.s. narasimhan — these aren't flukes. the country has mathematical culture in the real sense.

what we're bad at is keeping them. we build the pipeline and then we don't finish the job. it's like spending years growing a plant and then not watering it when it's about to bear fruit. the people who could build india's mathematical future are making tenure decisions in chicago and cambridge and paris right now, and a non-trivial number of them would have stayed, or come back, if the conditions were different.

what i actually think would help (not a policy paper, just common sense)

• postdoc and phd stipends need to double minimum. ₹37k in 2025 is not serious. the PM research fellowship (₹70k) is a good idea — expand it massively and stop restricting it so heavily.
• NBHM (the national board for higher mathematics) does useful work but is chronically underfunded. triple its budget. it's not a lot of money in the scheme of things.
• we need more permanent positions at the serious research institutes, not just more IIT expansion. TIFR and IMSc are the crown jewels. act like it.
• there are indian diaspora mathematicians at good western universities who would genuinely consider coming back for the right package. make that package exist. even 20-30 of these people returning would be transformative.
• protect the olympiad ecosystem. HBCSE does heroic work on not enough money. the selection camps and training are a public good.

Can anyone recommend good lecture series/resources for olympiad-style Euclidean geometry/problem solving?

I’m looking for proof-based geometry resources covering topics like triangles, circles, transformations, coordinate geometry, inequalities, etc. — from beginner to advanced level.

Would especially appreciate:

• YouTube playlists
• Full lecture series/courses
• Books with good solved problems
• Resources that build strong intuition and problem-solving skills

Thanks!

Hey everyone! I'm u/diptesh_kun, a founding moderator of r/Indianmathnerds.

This community is for anyone who loves mathematics — whether you're solving basic algebra, preparing for ISI/CMI/JEE/Olympiads, exploring calculus, number theory, proofs, puzzles, or just curious about how math works.

You do not need to be a genius to be here. You just need curiosity.

What you can post here:
• Doubts & questions
• Interesting problems
• Olympiad / entrance prep
• Proofs & concepts
• Study resources
• Math memes
• Beautiful patterns in math

Be respectful, help others, and enjoy the grind.

Let’s build the strongest math community from India. 🚀

Introduce yourself in the comments:
What are you studying right now?

Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/Indianmathnerds amazing.