🎓 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗿. 𝗔𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘆𝗮 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗻! Yesterday, my PhD student Aditya successfully defended his thesis! His thesis was examined by Prof. Naveen Garg (IIT Delhi) and Prof. Parinya Chalermsook (University of Sheffield, UK). He is going to join University of Waterloo as a postdoc. #PhD #CS #IISc

I am delighted to share that our paper has been accepted to 𝗙𝗢𝗖𝗦 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲! My wonderful coauthors: Kailash Gopal (Then a BTech student at IIT Madras and just joined predoc at Google DeepMind), Samyak Jha, RA at IISc (soon joining UW-Madison for PhD), and KVN Sreeniva (PhD student at IISc). #FOCS

Prof. Subir Kumar Ghosh (1953–2026) passed away last week. A former Prof at TIFR, Bombay, he launched the conference CALDAM and organized over 20 research workshops on algorithms across Indian universities. He is also known for his book on visibility algorithms. Rest in peace, Sir.

𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀. 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘀 + 𝗔𝗜. Erdős Unit Distance Problem: among n points in the plane, how many pairs can be distance 1 apart? After 80 years, OpenAI researchers gave a new lower-bound construction. Within hours, Will Sawin improved it to (n^{1.014}): arxiv.org/pdf/2605.20579 #Math #Geometry

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤. Turing Award winner Sir Tony Hoare passed away last Thursday at the age of 92. At age 26, he invented Quicksort -- Taught in UG algorithms and still one of the most elegant and widely used algorithms. #CS #Algorithms #Quicksort

Most of us can trace our journeys back to a few people who shaped how we think & what we work on. For me, two of them are Prof. Prasad Tetali (Carnegie Mellon University) & Prof. Mark de Berg (TU Eindhoven) -- both visiting us this week. This week also marks the start of Mark's sabbatical at IISc!

Sandor Fekete visited IISc and gave an awesome talk on "Hard in Theory, Easy in Practice?"

🚨 𝗣𝗮𝗽𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗖 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 | 𝗔 𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗰 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁! (1/n) 🎉 Huge congratulations to my PhD student Debajyoti Kar and collaborator Andreas Wiese 🎉 Our joint work has been accepted at STOC 2026 on approximation schemes for geometric knapsack with rotations.

𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐑 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟔 𝐚𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞: 𝐀𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐤 Most ad systems still do something very simple. They space ads uniformly, or impose crude caps, and hope for the best. Humans, unfortunately, are not uniform. This paper asks a basic question: What if ad scheduling actually respected how human attention works?

Unwavering Grit -- Lunch with "UG" Interns! Over the past seven years, I have mentored around 40 UG interns, and 20-25 of them joined PhD programs at top universities around the world. With curious and bright students, learning and enthusiasm flow both ways. #Internship #TheoryCS

Traditionally hosted in India, FSTTCS is now taking a historic step. For the first time, FSTTCS 2026 will be held outside India, in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Looking ahead, FSTTCS 2027 will be hosted at IIT Indore. I am delighted to serve as the PC Chair (Track A) for 2027. #FSTTCS #India #CS #Theory

𝗜𝗱𝗲𝗮𝘀 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗲. 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗢𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗤𝘂𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆. Happy Theorists during Panel Discussions on Future of Graph Algorithms at the Department of Computer Science and Automation, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. #IISc #India #Algorithms #Graphs

A fun-filled week of 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵 𝗮𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺𝘀 at IISc, a truly 𝗻𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗱 and 𝗱𝘆𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗰 event 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗲𝗱 over five days, 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 and 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 over 150 in-person participants from multiple countries. By many 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘀, the 𝗯𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁 ever in India! #IISc #India #Algorithms #Graph

With some of the brightest minds I admire. At my office during Graph Algorithms Workshop! Debmalya Panigrahi (Duke), Anupam Gupta (NYU), Amit Kumar (IITD), @Sujoy Bhore (IITB), Madhusudhan Reddy Pittu (NYU), and Debajyoti Kar (IISc)! With Erdős and Prasad Tetali in the background 🙂 #Algorithms

🚀 Biggest-ever Algorithms event in India -- starts tomorrow! Thrilled to share that we are organizing the Frontiers of Graph Algorithms Workshop, happening from December 8–12, 2025, at the IISc! 🎓 Streaming Link: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis... Details: algo.csa.iisc.ac.in/graphworkshop/

Had a wonderful time visiting Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels. Photo with ALGO group (John Iacono, Stefan Langerman, and Jean Cardinal). #Algo #Geometry

Excited to be at Dagstuhl this week for the seminar on 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐠𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐦𝐬 𝐁𝐞𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐀𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐲𝐬𝐢𝐬! Key themes include learning-augmented algorithms, stochastic input models (random-order, IID, prophet), online algorithms with recourse, etc. #Algorithms #Beyond-Competitive-Analysis

⚔️ Divide and Conquer: Not just for empires, but also for matchmaking! 📢 New lecture on the Closest Pair Problem — a cornerstone of computational geometry and an elegant example of the divide-and-conquer paradigm. (1/n)

🎒 Knapsack — We understand what's truly important when we pack our bags! 📢 I’ve just rolled out a comprehensive 7-part lecture series on the Knapsack Problem — one of the cornerstone problems in algorithms. 📺 Watch the full series on my channel: 👉 Algo-rindam lnkd.in/gBxPtkCq

🚀 Biggest Graph Algorithms Workshop in India! Walmart Center for Tech Excellence (WACE) at CSA, IISc is organizing the Frontiers of Graph Algorithms Workshop, happening during December 8–12, 2025 at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru! 🎓 Details: algo.csa.iisc.ac.in/graphworkshop/

Had a fun and productive week in Germany, participating in the Dagstuhl seminar on Precision in Geometric Algorithms. Photo: with my "packing" team: Anders Aamand (Rice University), Eunjin Oh (POSTECH), Linda Kleist (U Hamburg), Csaba Toth (CalState), and Mikkel Vind Abrahamsen (U Copenhagen).

But we do have the magic of algorithms. 💡 In my new video lecture for Design and Analysis of Algorithms, I dive into Interval Scheduling: Given a set of overlapping job requests, find the best non-overlapping subset to serve. (2/n)

🚀 What connects Mohan Bhargava (SRK) in Swades and Otakar Borůvka in Moravia? 👉 Minimum Spanning Tree (MST). In Swades, SRK faced the challenge of connecting all village homes to the power plant at min cost. Borůvka solved the same for electrification of Moravia in 1926 —the first MST algorithm.

🚀 Dynamic Programming through "Lord of the Rings". 🪄 Gandalf’s Memoization: Top-Down strategy, uses a memo to avoid repeated work. 🧝‍♂️ Frodo’s Bottom-Up Journey: Start from foothills & climb up to reach Mount Doom. English: www.youtube.com/watch?v=16t5... Bengali: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap55...

🚀 How can Sanskrit poetry connect to computer science? The challenge of generating poetry in Varnavrutta (syllable-based metres) gave rise to the discovery of binary numbers. The exploration of Mātrāvṛtta led to the ideas of recursion & DP. Video links below. #Algorithms #Prosody #Sanskrit

🚀 Stable Marriage & Nobel Prize! Memes: Stable matchings using Bollywood -- from Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, Dil To Pagal Hai, Hum Saath Saath Hai, Raanjhanaa, and Style. HIMYM gets an entry, too. 🎬 English video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lazg... 🎬 Bengali video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtVT...

🚀 Excited to share something close to my heart! This semester, I’m co-teaching Design and Analysis of Algorithms (DAA) at IISc — and bringing the fun to YouTube with my channel "Algo-rindam" 🎥 Think Bollywood, cricket, and algorithms all in the same lecture. #Algorithms #IISc

A PhD may have only one name on the certificate, but it’s a team sport. Here’s to my village — I couldn’t have done it without you. 🙏 Image: From the acknowledgement page of my thesis -- alluding to rectangle packing. My thesis was on approximation algorithms on multidimensional bin packing.

The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) 2025: 🥇 China topped the leaderboard with 6 Golds. 🥈 USA followed with 5 Golds & 1 Silver, and 🥉 South Korea secured 4 Golds & 2 Bronzes. 🇮🇳 India achieved 7th place this year with an excellent haul: 3 Golds, 2 Silvers, 1 Bronze. #IMO #Math

A historic day for the Algorithms community in India -- SoCG'27 coming to India -- IISc Bangalore! #SoCG #IISc #Bangalore