Washington -- Springer author R. Sujatha, from India's Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), has been awarded this year's Srinivasa Ramanujan Prize for Mathematics.

Presented for the second time, the prize carries a $10,000 cash award honouring the outstanding research of mathematical scientists in developing countries.

By giving the prize to her, the Ramanujan jury recognises Sujatha's work on the arithmetic of algebraic varieties and her substantial contributions to the Iwasawa theory, according to a press release from Springer, leading publishers of science, technical and medical material.

In cooperation with several colleagues, she formulated a non-commutative version of the theory's main conjecture, it said.

This innovation drives much of the current work in this particular mathematical subject. Sujatha, 44, is co-author of the book Cyclotomic Fields and Zeta Values in the series Springer Monographs in Mathematics.

Succeeding 2005 winner Marcelo Viana, she is the second Springer author to receive this honour.

R. Sujatha received all her university education in India and has been with the TIFR since 1985, where she is currently Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics. In 1991 she received her PhD at the University of Mumbai. The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) founded the Ramanujan Prize in 2005 to annually support a scientist younger than 45 years in any mathematical branch from a developing country.

In addition to the cash award, the prize winner will be invited to an ICTP meeting to deliver a lecture. The award ceremony will take place on Dec 18 in Trieste, Italy.

The Ramanujan Prize is supported by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters through the Abel Fund, with the cooperation of the International Mathematical Union.