Press Release

16TH DECEMBER 2002

President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam honours grassroots innovators and traditional knowledge holders at Delhi on December 17, 2002 to celebrate creative talents of India. National Innovation Foundation (NIF) www.nifindia.org set up by DST in March 2000 at Ahmedabad scouted about 1600 innovations and examples of traditional knowledge in the first year. In the second year, the number of innovations increased to more than 13500 from over 300 districts of the country. More than a dozen patents have been filed in India and abroad through pro bono help of patent attorneys. About 25 projects are being incubated from among the awardees and equal numbers from other innovators through three Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIANs) www.gian.org.

Hon'ble president has invited the innovators for a cup of tea at president's house on 18th along with HRD Minister (Dr. M. M. Joshi), DST Secretary (Prof. V. S. Ramamurthy) and NIF Chairperson & Secretary DSIR (Dr. R. A. Mashelkar). Innovators have been invited with their family members to receive awards. These awards are a part of NIF's mission to make India innovative and a global leader in sustainable technology. The Honey Bee collaborators have contributed more than 85 percent of the entries while remaining have come directly to NIF.

The ideas of innovations range from a bicycle designed by Mr.Kanak Das of Assam which runs faster on bumpy roads by converting the energy in the shock absorber into propulsion of rear wheel; a new design of check dam with several semicircular arches instead of a straight line saving cost and improving effectiveness by 4/5. Likewise, an innovator in Kerala Mr. Chandran has developed a machine for defibring coconut husks. Mr. Mansukhbhai of Gujarat has been awarded for a cotton stripping machine and Lingamadaiah for a developing a unique paddy variety. Mr. Harichandra Shetty is receiving award for developing India's first latexless jackfruit variety. The innovations are needed in making every day life easy even if it makes a small difference to a worker or farmer's life. Who would have imagined that one could design a manual loom for weaving mats of palm leaves. Mr. Pasupathi Marthandan has just done that in Tamil Nadu. If your cellphone battery has finished and you are in a bus or train or riding on a motorcycle in areas where there is no source of power, how would you communicate? Mr. Satyanarayan of Andhra Pradesh has developed a miniature windmill battery charger costing less than Rs. 200. Mr. Prem Singh Sani, a 8th pass boy, has designed an electronic robot in a village of Haryana. And, Mr. Bharat Kamble would not like that because of fluctuations in power or over-heating or other problems, the electric motor of the farmers should burn out in Maharashtra and elsewhere. He has designed a 
circuit costing Rs. 200 which will avoid this problem altogether in a workshop in a rented room. NIF has awarded ideas, innovations and traditional knowledge based practices. Imagine you need to charge the batteries of a walkman and you can do it by just walking, literally walking and with a device in your shoes, you can charge the battery. Have you tried to drink water from a hand pump? And realise how difficult it is to pump and drink water at the same time. With a simple improvement, the task has become much easier. Many of us who have used matchsticks realised that after igniting the fire, we extinguish a matchstick and ¾ of the matchstick gets thrown away. A student of management at Ahmedabad has suggested improvements by which one can save millions of tons of wood every year. In Titoi village of South Gujarat, the village community makes an extract of 125 herbs and sprinkle it all around as preventive human and animal health care. President of India could honour this community with first of its kind award for community's effective use of traditional knowledge and conserving resources using herbal traditional technology. A student of 8th class in Andhra Pradesh has suggested a simple device by which whenever there comes a letter in your letterbox, a bell is going to ring to announce it.

There are a large numbers of other such technologies, which have been recognised at the award function on 17 December. The third campaign of NIF has already started. Anybody who has innovative ideas, innovations or outstanding traditional knowledge can write and send them to NIF, PB No. 15051, Vastrapur, Ahmedabad - 380 015 and get prizes worth lacs of rupees.



Anil K Gupta
Executive Vice Chairperson

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