Conjeevaram Srirangachari Seshadri was a towering figure in the mathematical horizon and a leader of mathematics in India in the post-independence era. His contributions have been central to the development of moduli problems in almost all its aspects as well as in geometric invariant theory and representation theory of algebraic groups. He passed away in July 2020 at the age of 88.

Seshadri had published several of his influential papers in representations of algebraic groups and the geometry of Schubert varieties, especially in Standard Monomial Theory in the Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences. He also published a few very influential papers in the theory of moduli of sheaves in this journal. Sometime last year we proposed to the Indian Academy of Sciences that it would be very appropriate if they could bring out a special issue in Seshadri’s memory.

The Academy responded with full enthusiasm and support and agreed to the publication of a special issue in the Proceedings. A special editorial team was formed for this purpose. This team approached leading mathematicians for their contribution, all of whom were very closely associated to Seshadri in his mathematical career which spanned over 6 decades. The result of this effort is the present feast of papers by leading experts in Algebraic Geometry and Representation Theory in Seshadri’s memory.

We approached David Mumford, a close friend and a long time associate of Seshadri, to write a brief foreword for this memorial issue of the journal and he readily agreed. It is a special pleasure to thank him. We thank all the contributors for this volume for readily agreeing to send their research articles for this memorial issue.

Jean-Pierre Demailly contributed a beautiful article for this volume. We are very sad to record that he unfortunately passed away before its publication.

V. Balaji

D. S. Nagaraj

(Guest Editors)