Professor Padma Kant Shukla passed away suddenly on 26 January 2013 during his travel to New Delhi, India, the day after receiving the prestigious Hind Rattan (Jewel of India) Award. He was born 7 July 1950 in the village Tulapur, Uttar Pradesh (UP), India and was educated there. He graduated with Ph.D. in Physics from Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India at age 22. In 1975, he obtained his second doctorate degree in Theoretical Plasma Physics from Umea University under the supervision of one of us (L.S.). Affiliated with 14 academic and national institutions around the world throughout his career, his primary affiliation for 40 years was the Faculty of Physics & Astronomy, Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB), Germany, where in July 2010 he was appointed RUB International Chair, a lifetime Distinguished Physics Professor position. Padma Shukla published about 1500 papers in prestigious journals, playing very often a leading role in the exploration of new frontiers of plasma science, with special emphasis on the physics of dusty plasmas, on neutrino plasma physics, on nonlinear wave phenomena including parametric instabilities, on solitons and vortices, and on dense quantum plasma modes and structures. He was passionate about science and had an infectious enthusiasm that touched everyone who knew him.