In India, Travel & Tourism Boards, Industries, Educational Institutions, Governments and their people, in their ill-considered enthusiasm for undigested concepts of Progress and Development , are largely indifferent to preserving the rich heritage that NATURE has conferred on them. So much so, even the martyrdom of a person like Prof. G. D. Agrawal to save the river Ganges from the devastating effects through discharging human and industrial wastes , mining, building dams, National Water Ways for transportation, diverting its natural flows for hydro-electric power generation has not aroused the attention, let alone the conscience, of even the apparently knowledgeable and wise people in the so-called premier educational institutions of excellence.
In the above context, nothing is more important than educating the educator. And therefore the appropriateness of creating a Chair in IIT/Kanpur (where Prof. G. D. Agrawal had taught close to two decades) to pay homage to his memory and to promote his mission to inculcate in word and deed the profound sense of responsibility to NATURE without which MAN can have neither a PAST nor a FUTURE.