sentences:  In the earlier part of Padmanabhan's career (1980-2001), he made important contributions to quantum cosmology, structure formation in the universe and statistical mechanics of gravitating systems.In the 1980s, he came up with an interpretation of the Planck length as the `zero-point length' of the spacetime based on very general considerations.This result, established by theoretical considerations and well-chosen thought experiments , finds an echo in more recent results in several other candidate models for quantum gravity.