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Gajatame and Ganesha: The Sacred Elephant of Ancient India
Nov
02
2012
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Raman Sukumar is Professor and Chair of the Center for Ecological Sciences,
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. His early interests in natural history developed at Chennai where he documented the local flora and fauna during the 1970s. Moving to Bangalore in 1979, he obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science. His research on the elephant includes its movement patterns, genetics, reproductive biology, communication, and cultural history. In 1992 he helped the Indian government set up Project Elephant, the country’s flagship conservation program. He chaired the World Conservation Union’s Asian Elephant Specialist Group, set up the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, and been a member of the Indian Board for Wildlife.
In 2007 he received a commendation from the Prime Minister of India for his contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the Nobel Peace Prize. His publications include four books on the elephant, and over a hundred scholarly papers in the area of elephant biology, tropical forest ecology, climate change, and nature conservation.