Ecologist Madhav Gadgil, champion of Western Ghats conservation, dies at 83
Pune (PTI): Noted ecologist Madhav Gadgil, known for his work on the conservation of Western Ghats, has passed away in Pune after a brief illness, family sources said on Thursday.
He was 83.
Gadgil breathed his last late Wednesday night at a hospital in Pune, the sources said.
He played a pioneering role in shaping India's ecological research and conservation policy.
Gadgil was the founder of the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and chairman of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), popularly known as the Gadgil Commission.
In 2024, the United Nations presented Gadgil with the annual Champions of the Earth award, the UN's highest environmental honour, for his seminal work on the Western Ghats, a global biodiversity hotspot.
He had chaired the government-constituted Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel to study the impact of population pressure, climate change, and development activities on the ecologically fragile region in India.
In 2010, Gadgil was appointed chairman of the panel, which submitted a landmark report recommending that a significant portion of the Western Ghats be designated as ecologically sensitive. While the report triggered intense debate, it is widely regarded as a milestone in India's environmental discourse.
Born in Pune on May 24, 1942, Gadgil hailed from an illustrious academic family. His father, Dhananjay Ramchandra Gadgil, was a noted economist and former director of the Gokhale Institute.
Madhav Gadgil graduated in biology from Fergusson College in 1963 and completed his master's degree in zoology from the University of Mumbai in 1965. He went on to pursue a PhD from Harvard University in 1969, where he worked on mathematical ecology and animal behaviour.
After returning to India in 1971, Gadgil joined the Indian Institute of Science in 1973.
During his tenure at IISc, he established key institutions, including the Centre for Ecological Sciences and the Centre for Theoretical Studies, laying the foundation for modern ecological research in the country.
He retired from IISc in 2004 and later continued his academic engagement with the Agharkar Research Institute in Pune and the University of Goa.
Gadgil served on several high-level national and international bodies, including the Scientific Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, the National Advisory Council, and the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
A prolific researcher and writer, Gadgil authored or co-authored several influential books, including 'This Fissured Land' and 'Ecology and Equity', and published over 250 scientific papers.
He was also a regular columnist, writing extensively in English and Marathi to popularise ecological awareness.
Gadgil's contributions earned him numerous national and international honours, including the Padma Shri (1981), Padma Bhushan (2006), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, Volvo Environment Prize, and Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement.
His last rites will be performed later in the day.
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Ambani, Adani pledge USD 210 bn for India's AI push
New Delhi (PTI): Conglomerates run by billionaires Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani committed USD 210 billion investment to creating infrastructure that will help India emerge as an AI development hub.
At the India AI Impact Summit, Ambani announced a Rs 10 lakh crore (about USD 110 billion) investment in artificial intelligence over the next seven years in gigawatt-scale AI-ready data centres in Jamnagar, leveraging up to 10 GW of green power surplus, and a nationwide edge-compute layer integrated with telecom and digital operator Jio's networks to deliver low-latency AI across India.
"Our resolve is clear: make intelligence as ubiquitous as connectivity," he said. "When compute becomes infrastructure, innovation will become inevitable."
Adani, on the other hand, unveiled a USD 100-billion investment to develop renewable-energy-powered, hyperscale AI-ready data centres by 2035 -- one of the world's largest integrated energy-compute commitments.
The initiative is expected to catalyse an additional USD 150 billion across server manufacturing, cloud platforms, and supporting industries, creating a projected USD 250 billion AI infrastructure ecosystem in India.
India must architect its own artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure rather than rely on imports, Adani Group executive director Jeet Adani said on Thursday, warning that AI will redefine national sovereignty.
Other major investments announced at the Summit included USD 50 billion commitment by Microsoft by the end of the decade to expand artificial intelligence access across the Global South. "India, not surprisingly, is one of the largest," its vice chair and president, Brad Smith, said.
The firm had unveiled USD 17.5 billion investment in AI investments in India last year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced a new subsea cable initiative to boost AI connectivity between India, the US and other locations, alongside partnerships for cloud infrastructure platform support to over 20 million public servants across 800 districts.
Yotta Data Services, backed by a real estate group headed by Niranjan Hiranandani, announced over USD 2 billion spend on Nvidia's latest chips in an artificial intelligence computing hub it is setting up just outside the national capital.
While Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) signed up ChatGPT parent OpenAI as its first customer for its data centre unit under the global AI infrastructure initiative Stargate, infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro announced a proposed venture with Nvidia to build AI-ready data centre infrastructure, advanced computing platforms, and ecosystem enablement required to support large-scale AI workloads.
