Ram Prakash Bambah had his college education (1939-45) at Government College at Lahore (now in Pakistan), standing first in FA, BA, BA (Hons) and MA in Panjab University, Lahore. He obtained his PhD in 1950 from the University of Cambridge, where he worked at St. John's College under the guidance of LJ Mordell. He joined Panjab University, Chandigarh as Reader in 1952 and became Professor in 1957. He was also a Professor at Ohio State University during 1964-69. He was awarded ScD degree by Cambridge University in 1970. He is an Emeritus Professor at Panjab University since 1993.

Academic and Research Achievements: Professor Bambah has made substantial contributions in Number Theory and Discrete Geometry: Ramannjans T-function, Gaussian sums, diophantine equations, packings, etc. He obtained various significant results on critical determinants of star bodies and developed the theory of coverings. He also obtained the best lattice covering density for 3-dimensional spheres, estimates for the lattice covering density of n-dimensional spheres and the Bambah-Woods inequality for finite coverings of convex domains. Particular mention may be made of his contribution to the proof of the longstanding conjecture of Minkowski for n = 4, 5. Also he was able to establish a school in Geometry of Numbers at Panjab University. With his active participation and guidance, a conjecture of Watson and a related conjecture of Bambah, Dumir and Hans-Gill was proved, which completed a programme started by Minkowski in 1899 and taken further by Davenport, Heilbronn, Blaney, Watson, Birch, Dumir, Hans-Gill, Raka and others.

Other Contributions: Bambah was President of the Indian Mathematical Society (1969), Mathematical section of Indian Science Congress Association (1973), Physical Sciences of National Academy of Sciences (1978) and member of UGC (1976-79). He was Vice-Chancellor of Panjab University (1985-91) and presently is a member of the Board of trustees of the Tribune, Vice Chairman, Governing body of the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development (CRRID) and was the Chairman of the governing body of Inter-University Centre of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune. He has been the editor of the Journal of Indian Mathematical Society, Mathematics Student and Indian Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

Awards and Honours: Apart from various medals of Panjab University, Lahore, other honours that he received include UGC National Lectureship, UGC National Fellowship, Distinguished Service Award from Mathematics Association of India and Panjab University, Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal (1979) and Aryabhata Medal (1988) of INSA, Srinivasa Ramanujan Medal of Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) S Ramanujan Lecture Award by Indian Mathematical Society, Meghanand Saha Medal for Theoretical Sciences, UGC-Hari Om Trust Award, Jawaharlal Nehru Birth Centenary Lecture Award of ISCA, and Padma Bhushan. He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (1974), the National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad (1978) and TWAS, the Academy of Science for the Developing World. He was Vice-President of INSA (1979-80) and General President of Indian Science Congress Association (1983-84).