Conservation hero S.Theodore Baskaran has been bestowed with Sanctuary Lifetime Service Award 2020 by Sanctuary Nature Foundation for his role in wildlife conservation and his continuing legacy of writings in Tamil and English to the conservation discourse.

He is an Indian film historian and wildlife conservationist who was born in 1940 in Dharapuram, TN and completed his BA (Hons) Degree in History from Madras Christian College in 1960.

Baskaran published his first article on film in 1972 about Chidananda Dasgupta's documentary The Dance of Shiva and later on went on to do research about Tamil Cinema. He presented his first research article titled Film Censorship as an Instrument of Political Control in British India in the Indian History Congress in 1976. His second book The Eye of the Serpent (1996) won the Golden Lotus (Best Book on Cinema) Award in 1997. He has written multiple books both in English and Tamil.

Baskaran is a keen bird watcher and a naturalist. He is a former honorary wild life warden and the South India Representative of the International Primate Protection League.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)