HRD Minister Smriti Irani to unveil Aryabhata's bust at UNESCO HQ at int'l meet on 'zero'

New Delhi: HRD Minister Smriti Irani will participate in an international conference on the 'zero' in France this week.

The idea for holding an event on the relevance of "zero" was conceived when Irani participated in a Leaders' Forum at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris in November last.

"The HRD Ministry together with the Pierre and Marie Curie University, Paris, will host an International Conference on the Zero on April 4-5 at the UNESCO headquarters.

"It will share the rich and remarkable history of mathematics through the participation of some brilliant minds," an official statement said here.

The concept of zero as a digit in the decimal place value notation was developed in India, presumably as early as during the Gupta period (5th century) with the oldest unambiguous evidence dating to the 7th century.