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[email protected]) A quarterly bulletin of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics ISSN 0972-7647 (An autonomous institution of the University Grants Commission) Available online at http://ojs.iucaa.ernet.in/ 27th IUCAA Foundation Day Lecture Introduction A Natural History of The 27th IUCAA Foundation Day Knowledge Lecture was delivered by the eminent A naturalist lives today in a world of Indian ecologist, Professor Madhav wounds, but for a connoisseur of Gadgil on December 29, 2015. Over a knowledge, ours is a golden age; the career spanning more than four decades, challenge before us is to deploy the strengths Professor Gadgil has championed the of our age to heal the wounds. Life is an effort towards the preservation of information-based, progressive and ecology in India, which includes cooperative enterprise, evolving organisms establishing the Centre for Ecological capable of handling greater and greater Sciences under the aegis of the Indian quantities, of increasingly more complex Institute of Science, Bengaluru in 1983 information, ever more effectively. Social and serving as the Head of the Western animals have taken this to new heights, with be unhappy in this as well as the nether Ghats Ecology Expert Panel of 2010, humans surpassing them, all thanks to the world. The ruling classes have always tried popularly known as the Gadgil language abilities, and the greatly enhanced to keep the populace ignorant as preached Commission. An alumnus of Harvard capacity to learn, teach, and to elaborate by Laozi, a contemporary of Buddha: The University, he is a recipient of the Padma memes, including mythologies and people are hard to rule when they have too Shri and Padma Bhushan from the scientific knowledge.