Jagat Narain Kapur obtained his PhD degree (1957) from the University of Delhi. His area of specialization was applied mathematics. The major part of his career was at the IIT-Kanpur where he rose to be Professor and Head of the Mathematics Department; Vice-Chancellor, Meerut University; and Visiting Professor at IIT, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Carnegie-Mellon, Manitoba and Waterloo Universities. He has also been INSA Senior Scientist (1987-89).

Academic and Research Achievements: Kapur made contributions to internal ballistics of guns and rockets, superposibility of fluid flows, non-Newtonain fluid flows, inlet length flows, compressible and hypersonic fluid flows, magnet hydrodynamics, heat transfer, population growth models, time-delay models, age-structured models, mathematical bioeconomics, biomechanics, measures of information, maximum entropy models, pattern recognition, image thresholding, marketing, income inequalities, flexible manufacturing system, etc. He published more than 50 non-textbook documents, 45 books on mathematical education, 15 books on supporting materials, five books on higher education, five research-level books and several others.

Other Contributions: Kapur contributed significantly to mathematics education, scientific values, and popularization of mathematics. He was member of Editorial Boards of 20 journals and edited books for Indira Ghandhi Natinal Open University, National Council of Educational Research Training and Indian Institute of Technology. He was a UGC National Lecturer and Indian National Representative on International Commission on Mathematical Instruction and Member of INSA Council (1973-75).

Awards and Honours: Kapur was a recipient of GP Chatterjee Award of Indian Science Congress (1988); Distinguished Servive Award of Mathematical Association of India (1985); Education Minister Gold Medal and National Academy of Sciences Distinguished Research Award. He was a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; National Academy of Sciences (India), Allahabad and Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (UK). He was President of Indian Mathematical Society and Calcutta Mathematical Society.