There's pretentiousness, and then there's prrettentioussness!
The world over, there are essentially two kinds of mathematics practiced: pure math and applied math. And practitioners of both have contributed equally. Both are respected. Both are relevant. Both are important. Period.
But TIFR, somehow clearly convinced of its intellectual superiority over the rest of the world, has a center for "Applicable" math in Bengaluru! "Applicable"! And pray which math is "not applicable", kind sirs and madams? Everyone knows that applied math is frowned upon at this center, and by their own admission they aren't pure mathematicians! So what kind of a twilight zone are we talking about here?
76 years since independence and these are our contributions! Coining meaningless terms to feel stuffy and important instead of actually delivering important contributions to the field!
A few places tried an experiment: they opened "Departments of Mathematical Science" to bring both pure and applied math under the same roof. But there too, "Intellectual Brahminism" was already ready to create its heirarchy! Half baked "supposedly pure mathematicians" lurking around every corner to condescend any mathematician who dare be interested in applying his/her mind to solve real world problems!
There are so many applied mathematicians the world over contributing to so many important fields: cancer treatment, disease control, environmental sciences, climate change, weather prediction, theoretical physics, aerodynamics, chemical plant optimization, ...!
But we'll content ourselves with feeling stuffy with near zero accomplishment to back it!
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