ISIAM-The Indian Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics was established on the occasion of a symposium on “Differential Equations and Industrial Applications” during the last week of September, 1990 at the department of Mathematics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. Professor Abul Hasan Siddiqi was the Chairman and Director of the symposium. Professors Helmut Neunzert, Martin Brokate and Rene Lozi were invited speakers. More than 50 delegates including Professors H.P. Dixit, P. Achutan, S. Kesavan, Adimurty, (Mrs.) Ravinderan, M.U.Siddiqui, V.P. Saxena, R. Lanka, G.C. Sharma and R.C. Gupta participated.

After long deliberations, it was decided to establish the Indian Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics(ISIAM). Professor A.H. Siddiqi was authorised to draft the constitution in consultation with the founder members, to enrol members and to get the society registered. The annual conference of the Indian Mathematical Society was held in Aligarh during the last week of December 1991. He was the local secretary. 

On this occasion, a meeting of all enrolled members was convened and the constitution of the society was approved. The society organized its first symposium during this conference. Professor Tery Rockafellar, U.S.A., and Professor Alain Bensoussan, President INRIA. France, were the guests of honour on this occasion. Professor J.N. Kapur was elected unanimously President and Professor Siddiqi was elected secretary and they were authorised to nominate office-bearers and council members. On this occasion, it was also decided that the society will organize an International Workshop of Industrial Mathematics in collaboration with the Aligarh Muslim University Academic Staff College and Hamdard University, Delhi from 9-15 December, 1992. Although there were a lot of turmoils prior to this conference, especially in Northern India, the organizers still managed the workshop. 60 university and college teachers from different parts of the country participated in this activity and interacted with speakers from Australia, Japan and U.S.A. The workshop was inaugurated by the then cabinet Minister of Water Management, government of India Mr. V.C. Shukla. 

The first annual conference of the society was held at Roorki University, Roorki in February 1993. Professor R.C. Gupta was the organizing secretary. The proceedings of the conference were published.

The second conference of the society was held at Anna University, Chennai during the last week of February 1994, Professor (Mrs.) Prabha Mani R.Patil was the local secretary. The Vice-Chancellor Anna University presided over the inaugural function.

The third annual conference of the society was organized in May 1995 at Calcutta University and Professor D. K. Sinha was the organizing secretary. Several interesting topics like image processing, modelling of traffic, modelling of chemical reactions were discussed in detail. Professor D.K. Sinha and Professor N.K. Gupta were respectively requested to accept the post of Vice-President and Joint Secretary. Both accepted our request in spite of the fact that in the subsequent months, Professor Sinha took over as the Vice-Chancellor of Vishwa Bharti University and Professor Gupta was elected the President of the Indian Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and the President of the Indian Society of Mechanical Engineers. 

The fourth conference was organized in April 1996 at Jamia Millia, New Delhi. Professor Khalil Ahmad was the local secretary, Professor M.B. Mathur, Vice-Chairman, the University Grants Commission was the chief guest at the inaugural function. Professor H.P. Dixit presided over the inaugural session. Professor Helmut Neunzert delivered key note address. Besides many symposiums a session on teaching of Mathematics presided over by the Director NCERT, Professor Maheshwari was quite thought-provoking. Participants liked very much talks delivered by a group of speakers from IIT Delhi (especially that of Dr. Anand Jagota at present Senior Research Scientist, Dupont Central Research and Development, Wilimton, U.S.A.) who were invited in a symposium organized by Professor N.K. Gupta. The proceedings of this conference were published by Narosa. This contains very informative articles. 

In view of various activities related to industrial mathematics in different parts of the world,the 5th annual conference of the society could be organized in the first week of Sept.1998 at the Institute of Technology, Bhopal. Prof. Siddiqi was authorised to approach the International Centre of Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy, to organize a summer/Autumn/Winter school on Industrial Mathematics as usual whose beneficiaries will be participants from the third world countries. He met Professor A. Virasoro, Director ICTP in November 1997 in this connection and the school was organized in September/October 1999. There were many participants from India in this school. 

The International Conference on Functional Analysis with Applications was organized at Aligarh with the financial support of UGC, CSIR, DST, NBHM and ICTP. Many distinguished experts of the theme from India and abroad such as Professors Husain, Zelasko, Sanchez, Saxon, Oettali, Ben-El-Mechaiekh, Brokate, Evans, Kesavan, Srikant, Adimurti participated. The testimony of the success of this conference is that some selected papers presented on this occasion were published in Pitman Research Notes in mathematics Series as Vol. 377. The Roorki group also organized the conference and published its proceedings by Narosa, New Delhi. As a result of the AMU Conference, some Functional Analysts started taking interest in its industrial applications.

A workshop on Industrial mathematics was organized in IISC Campus, Banglore in January 1998. A miniworkshop was organized in Jamia Millia, New Delhi in April 1998 in which people from industrial organizations and university system presented their points of view. Professors Karmeshu, C. Mohan, V.P. Saxena, G.C. Sharma, M. Rasulia of Tashkent, and Dr. (Mrs.) P. manchanda were among the speakers from the University system. Professor Khalil Ahmad organized this workshop. Representatives of the Research and Development Division (Indian Railways, Lucknow), Paper Industry Saharanpur, ONGC, Dehra Dun and Tata Research Consultancy et al. participated actively in the deliberations.

Since there were a lot of activities on Industrial Mathematics in different parts of the world, the 5th annual conference of the society was organized at the Institute of Technology Bhopal (Maulana Azad Regional Engineering College) in the first week of Sept. 1998. An interesting feature was a lecture by Professor V.S. Rekhi, Director of the National Institute of Law in Bhopal, on the role of mathematics in the legal system. It is a very exciting theme for persons interested in applications of mathematics in other areas. In July 1999, a symposium of similar theme was organized in Edinburgh during the 5th International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics in which several distinguished legal experts of U.K. participated, besides some eminent mathematicians like Professor Michael Atiyah. This is a vast field to work in. Professor M. Kumar was the organizing secretary of the Bhopal Conference.

A workshop on Industrial Mathematics was organized at the Convention Hall of Hamdard University during 23-27 February, 1999 in collaboration with Roorki University. The University Grants Commission kindly agreed to treat it as its North Zone Conference in emerging areas. 28 chairmen/their representatives participated in the workshop along with other 30 participants. Professors Kapur, Neunzert, Engle, Schachermayer, Rudraia,, Sitaramaiya, Rajsonov, Eschman, et al. were speakers. Professor C. Mohan, Dr. Pammy Manchanda and Mr. Afsar Alam worked hard to make this workshop a great success. Deliberations of the workshop got attention of National dailies like Hindu. Dr. Mashelkar, Director General CSIR inaugurated the conference. The inaugural session was presided over by the Vice-Chancellor Hamdard University, Professor Alauddin Ahmad.

Those who attended were Professors Kapur (on chair), A.H. Siddiqi, N.K. Gupta, V.P. Saxena, R.S. Pathak, Z.A. Taqvi, Sunder Lal, V.K. Parashar, P.K. Jain, MZR Khan, Pammy Manchanda. The President, Professor J.N. Kapur was authorized to take action to accelerate the activities of the society and to actively involve more people. Professor N.K. Gupta was requested to take appropriate steps to start a journal of the society. Professor C. Mohan was assigned the task of raising the number of members and motivating organizations and individuals to become patrons of the society. Professor V.P. Saxena and Professor Karmeshu were requested to take appropriate measures to establish liaison with academicians and organizations/agencies/companies having research and development divisions. Professors V.K. Parashar, Sunderlal, R.S. Phathak, K.R. Paradasni and P.K. Jain were requested to raise corpus for the society. Professor Siddiqi was authorized to establish working relationship with national and international societies. Dr. Pammy Manchanda was nominated by the President as the joint secretary of the society. The appointment was subsquently ratified by the appropriate bodies. 

The society was affiliated to the International Council of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) in May 1999. Prof. Siddiqi attended the meeting on behalf of the Society held in Edinburgh on 12 July, 1999. A detailed proposal was submitted to the President, ICIAM for holding conference in Delhi 2007 which was considered in its meeting held in Paris on 27th May 2000. Our counterparts of Switzerland and Canada were other contenders to hold this conference. The final decision was taken in May 2001 in a meeting held in Helsinski on 27th May, 2001 and Zurich is the choice.

The society published several Newsletters and provided valuable information for teaching and research of industrial and applied mathematics. The society also tried to highlight the importance and relevance of this field through national print media. It has succeeded in creating 2 awards for distinguished Industrial and Applied Mathematicians which will be awarded in annual conferences of the society. 

An International Conference combined with 6th Annual Conference was organized at Gurunank Dev University, Amritsar during 21-25, january 2001. Besides dozen distinguished industrial mathematicians from abroad a large number of Indian participants attended the conference. Dr. Pammy Manchanda was the local secretary. It was a very well organized conference. The foreign speakers included Professors P.L. Butzer, Zuhair Nashed, Noel G. Barton, Graeme Fair Weather, H.D. Mittelmann, Rene Lozi, J.R. Higgins, R.L. Stens, M. Kocvara and Zafar Aslan. The proceedings of this conference have been published in two parts one by Kluwer Academic Publishers and other by Anamya Publisher. The society organized two symposiums each in 3 parts during 5th International Congress of Industrial and Applied Mathematics held in Sydney,July2003. The Proceeding of these symposiums have been published by Chapman&Hall/CRC Press,Taylor &Francis Group 2005 KM Furati,Zuhair Nashed,Abul Hasan Siddiqi as editors.There are 35 contributors from 16 different countries. 

The ISIAM conference combined with an International Conference was held at the India International Centre,New Delhi,4-7,Dec.2004.Honble Shri Arjun Singh, HRD Minister, Goverment of India &Honble Shri MAA Fatemi,HRD,Minister of State Goverment of India graced the Inaugral Function.Engr.Nadeem Tarin,Project Manager Al-Terais hosted lunch in the honor of delegates. Click here for report

It will not be out of place to mention that with the meagre financial resources of the society (interest of the fixed deposit of the amount of membership fee), it was impossible to organize the above mentioned activities without generous financial support of some voluntary organizations like the Duty Society, Aligarh Muslim University, Nadim Tarin Society and a trust established by Professor J.N. Kanpur.