Domestic wind power firm Suzlon Energy chief Tulsi Tanti, along with Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology's D P Dobhal, have made to a list of global environment champions prepared by the Time magazine.
Tanti and Dobhal are the only two Indians on the list, which includes other prominent names like Nobel Peace Prize winner and former US vice-president Al Gore, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prince Charles of Wales and former Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev.
The magazine said its 'Heroes of the Environment' list is focused on those who are making efforts to address the pressing questions of sustainability. While Tanti, chairman of Suzlon Energy, the fourth largest wind turbine maker in the world has been named as one of the 'moguls and entrepreneurs', Dobhal, a glaciologist, is part of the scientists and innovators category. The magazine has described Dobhal as the one scaling "the shrinking glaciers of the Himalayas to track the globe's warming in real time".
"The environment isn't bound by borders on the map and neither are our heroes. So we selected candidates from developed countries, where environmentalism has had time to take root, and from developing nations, where tomorrow's green battles will be fought," the magazine said in the cover story of its latest Asia edition.
Pointing out that Tanti is all the more convinced that wind is the energy of the future and that his firm would help in launching the industry into the mainstream, he is quoted as saying.
"Green business is good business. But it's not just about making money. It's is about being responsible."
According to the magazine, Tanti settled down on wind power by buying two turbines to meet the energy needs of his textile company in late 90s. Later, in 2001, Suzlon sold off its textile manufacturing firm and entered into the field of wind turbine generators.
"If wind was the answer to Suzlon's energy needs, asked Tanti, then why couldn't it fuel the growth of other industries?" the report added. Dobhal, a glaciologist at Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, which studies the Himalayan glaciers, makes use of bamboo sticks to measure the rise and fall of glacial mass.
"Because I am a government servant, whatever I do I'm doing it for my country... Glaciers are the best indicator we have," he is quoted by the magazine. His work is all the more important since Himalayan glaciers have been studied by less scientists compared to that of glaciers in Alps, the Rockies and the Arctic, points out the report.
"You don't have to be an environmentalist to be a hero of the environment. The threats that face the planet are so varied from widespread species extinction to dwindling natural resources that we'll need front-line activists and boardroom tycoons in equal measure," says the magazine.
