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Narendra Karmarkar, a brilliant alumnus of IIT Bombay (B.Tech, 1978), is a towering figure in the world of theoretical mathematics and computer science. While working at Bell Labs in 1984, he published a landmark discovery known as Karmarkar’s Algorithm. At the time, Linear Programming (LP)—the mathematical method used by industries to find the most efficient way to distribute resources—was largely solved using the Simplex method, which could be dreadfully slow for complex problems.

Karmarkar’s breakthrough was the first truly "efficient" polynomial-time algorithm for linear programming. By utilizing an "interior point" method—essentially cutting through the center of a multidimensional shape rather than crawling along its edges—he proved that massive optimization problems could be solved in P-time (polynomial time). His work didn’t just win him the prestigious Fulkerson Prize; it fundamentally changed how global logistics, telecommunications, and finance operate today.