In an era of accelerating ecological crisis — of climate change, biodiversity loss, and deepening social inequities — we need more Gadgils: Thinkers with intellectual courage, moral clarity, and the willingness to engage with diverse views

In the long arc of Indian history, only a handful of scientists have truly captured the public imagination. Madhav Gadgil was one of them. In the 2010s, his Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP), widely known as the Gadgil Report, commanded newspaper front pages, primetime television debates, heated public meetings, and sharply divided political platforms. Rarely has a scientific assessment been so fiercely attacked and so passionately defended for its intellectual rigour and plain-speaking.