President Pranab Mukherjee and Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh have condoled the death of ace mathematician Shakuntala Devi, who was known as the world's fastest 'human computer'.

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Shakuntala Devi passed away at a hospital in Bangalore on Sunday due torespiratory problems.

Shakuntala Devi Educational Foundation Public Trust Trustee D C Shivadev said:"She passed away at Bangalore Hospital. Doctors declared her dead at 8.15 am.

Devi who has enthralled fans with her mathematical prowess for decades, was 83 when she breathed her last/

She was hospitalised a couple of weeks ago for critical respiratory problems, Shivadev said.

"She had developed heart and kidney problems later," he added.

A household name in India, Devi cast a spell over the audience by adding a 16-digit number with another one and multiplying the result with an equal array of numbers almost instantaneously, finding the cube root of the resultant and popped up with an answer in just about the time taken for a wink.

Devi had no formal education and simply picked up reading and writing. She had the ability to tell the day of the week of any given date in the last century in a jiffy.

"God's gift. A divine quality," is how Devi had once felt of her unique distinction that first surfaced at the age of three. She was quoted as saying that none in her family showed any signs of the same head for figures. "Not even remotely, although my dad was a stage magician.

Rated as one in 58 million for her stupendous mathematical feats by one of the fastest super-computers ever invented --the Univac-1108 -- Devi believed in using grey cells to silicon chips.

Born on 4th November, 1929, Devi figured in the Guinness Book of World Record for her outstanding ability and wrote numerous books like 'Fun with Numbers', 'Astrology for You', 'Puzzles to Puzzle You', and 'Mathablit'.

Hailing from a simple orthodox Kannada Brahmin family, Devi's father was a circus performer who did trapeze, tightrope and cannonball shows. He had rebelled against becoming a temple priest.