Dr. Rakesh Kumar, Assistant Professor, School of Mathematics delivered an invited talk in the 27th Annual Conference of the Jammu Mathematical Society which is held during 15-17 February, 2018 at the Department of Mathematics, University of Jammu. The title of his talk was “Getting Familiar with Operations Research (OR)”. He discussed the meaning, nature, and methodology of Operations Research. Dr. Kumar in his talk cited various real life examples where OR can be useful, like in the formulation of minimum cost balanced diet, in the determination of optimal transportation schedules, optimal deployment of Police personnel, in the management of Construction projects etc. He further talked on the history and developments of OR. Operations Research came into being during the World War II in Britain with the establishment of teams of scientists to study the strategic and tactical problems involved in military operations. The objective was to find the most effective utilization of limited military resources by the use of quantitative techniques. After that a number of OR societies have been formed worldwide for its growth and development. Lastly, he shared some real cases where OR has benefitted a lot the organizations worldwide.

Dr. Rakesh would like to thank Prof. Romesh Kumar (Convener and Head, Deptt. of Mathematics, University of Jammu) for inviting him for this invited talk.