Innovation: Where has India succeeded and failed

Before we get carried away, the key question here isn't one of trying to copy American practices into Indian circumstances. Nor it is a move to suggest that innovative ideas in India, must look like those in the United States.

The question is a much deeper one. Without resorting to large-scale changes that need huge political capital, how can we start institutionalising innovation in India?

What are the small steps that reachable people like Non-Resident Indians, Indian industrialists and some open-minded politicians can take on?

Where can we best focus our attention to get measurable forms of success in the short term, while relentlessly moving us forward towards the long term?

But first, we must understand what India is doing today towards institutionalising innovation.

Rural and Indigenous Innovations

One style of innovation that really works in a country as large and diverse as ours, is grassroots innovation: this includes inventions for a milieu that is quintessentially Indian.

These inventions are probably difficult to migrate from our culture, traditions and environment to that of other countries, but they are critical to how Indian ingenuity can be directly used to transform our circumstances, in ways that elite corporate research laboratories never can.

These rural and indigenous innovations come from two sources: first, farmers, semi-literates, illiterates, slum-dwellers who have managed to change things by marrying their own innate genius to their inherent understanding of ground conditions; and, second, innovations taken from more traditional sources such as universities and independent engineers that are then adapted back to suit Indian traditions and conditions.

Some key examples from the BBC and rediff.com include:

• Balubhai Vasoya, from Ahmedabad in Gujarat has developed a stove that uses both kerosene and electricity. A six-volt electric coil heats the kerosene, converting it into gas which burns with a blue flame. It saves 70 per cent on fuel compared with conventional stoves running on LPG. 'One litre of kerosene lasts for eight hours; and in 20 hours, the stove uses one unit of electrical power. So running it for an hour costs one-and-a-half rupees in total. No smell, no smoke and it burns like LPG.'
• Mansukhbhai of Gujarat could not afford to buy a tractor, so he created an Enfield diesel motorcycle with a difference: by removing the back wheel and replacing it with a spiked cylinder, his motorcycle now doubles as a tractor.
• Anna Saheb Udgave, a 70-year-old farmer from the Sadalga village in Karnataka's Belgaum district, developed a low-cost drip irrigation system to fight water crisis in his village. He improved upon his innovation and turned it into a mega sprinkler, and called it Chandraprabhu Rain Gun. Other impressed farmers of the same village slowly started using Anna Saheb's rain gun in their farms. Now, the farmers of Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka are also using it successfully.
• Deepasakhti Pooja Oil, a blend of five different oils in a ratio prescribed in the Indian shastras does not produce any soot but gives a bright flame. It lasts longer and the fumes produced repel disease-causing bacteria. It is now being commercially manufactured by KP Castor Oil Works in Coimbatore.
• A banana stem injector developed by Manoharan, a lathe owner of Batlagundu in Tamil Nadu, is similar to a syringe which can be used to inject pesticides into the psuedo-stem of the banana that is diseased. 'It helps manage indiscriminate pesticide application in banana cultivation, leading to a 20 percent cost saving in farming operations'
• A manual milking device -- J S Milker -- is another innovation that has found acceptance in the rural areas. J S Milker is manufactured and marketed by J Support Industries headed by Joy John of Pothanicad, Kerala. J S Milker is a simple vacuum driven portable machine, which can be used to milk cows effortlessly. J S Milker is so successful in South India that RIN (see below) is planning to market it in Gujarat, where there are several milk co-operatives.
• A solar water harvester conceived by Deepak Rao of Chennai has received a grant of Rs 190,000 from the Techno entrepreneur Promotion Programme of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. It uses solar energy to convert non-potable water into potable water. The product is still going on, and we are yet to commercialize it. From a 1 square metre model, we can have 5 litres of pure water per day. We are looking at it from a domestic point of view, especially in Chennai, where water scarcity is a big problem.

But, who is making sure that these innovations see the light of the day and help these innovators shed their cloak of obscurity?

Two key organisations are doing yeoman work in this direction:

• The National Innovation Foundation, set up initially under Dr Mashelkar, is 'building a national register of grassroots innovation and traditional knowledge; it has set up a micro-venture innovation fund for individuals who have no bank account and who cannot produce any balance sheet and yet have innovations that warrant investment of risk capital.' NIF has set up a national innovation competition, for which the winners have included an eighth standard dropout, who developed a complex robot, the farmer who developed a unique cardamom variety and 'an illiterate individual, who had developed a disease resistant pigeon pea variety.'
• RIN, Rural Innovation Network, is the brainchild of Paul Basil from Moovattupuzha in Kerala. The organisation focuses on promoting rural innovation-based enterprises and is a business incubator that turns grassroots innovations into commercial enterprises. 'RIN uses multiple points like Chennai's engineering colleges, agricultural universities, research institutions, patent offices, local fairs, exhibitions and banks to identify innovations. Once identified, RIN does a market research of the product to find out whether the idea is commercially viable. Then, they refine the products by making the innovations market-friendly, which means a lot of engineering work and overhauling.' In most cases, the innovator passes on the technology to an entrepreneur or a company for a royalty. So what is the role of RIN in this? 'We are just enablers,' says Basil. "We basically provide consulting inputs to, both, innovators and entrepreneurs. Our job is to tie the loose ends. There are several private entrepreneurs out there who want new products. We also help the entrepreneurs develop markets.' RIN now has 11 innovations that it is working on and wants to increase the number to 20 in the next one of two years.

The most successful product marketed by RIN till date is the rain gun, created by Anna Saheb. When RIN found the marketability of the product, they brought in the Chennai-based Servals Automation Pvt Ltd and the company signed a technology transfer agreement with Anna Saheb. Anna Saheb got a fixed royalty for his innovation, and RIN filed for a design registration (and marketing rights) of the rain gun.

Mumbai-based Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund made an investment of Rs 800,000 to pick up a 49 percent stake in Servals Automation. According to RIN, this is the first such micro venture investment of its kind in India, if not the world over. So far, 60 rain guns worth Rs 200,000 have been sold.

Academia-Industry alliances

A calculation by the Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University, says 50 of India's 250-odd universities are active in academia-business liaisons. The interaction between academia and business can take many forms -- new start-up companies by academics, consultancies, joint ventures between commercial and academic organisations, and even 'blue-skies' projects that entail industry sponsorship of research in an area where the outcome is not clear.

Of these, institutional collaborations with industries are perhaps most common, such as:

• Shantha Biotechniques funds research in academic centres as far apart as AIIMS, New Delhi, and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.
• IISC has about 400 collaborations, its partners ranging from Cadila (pharma) to HFCL (telecom).
• The IIT-Delhi campus hosts labs for, among others, IBM, Tata Infotech, Motorola. Samsung India Electronics is working with IIT-Delhi for new designs of colour televisions, washing machines and air-conditioners to suit the Indian market. The company also plans to set up a consumer laboratory at IIT, where industrial designs students will work on projects sponsored by Samsung.
• Scientists from the Amritsar-based Guru Nanak University provide quality control consultancy to textile and agro-based units, including food giant Nestle.
• Minati Das of Dibrugarh University has set up a world-class research facility in petroleum technology -- along with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and Indian Oil Corporation -- which also provides technically qualified local manpower to ONGC and IOC.
• FMC Corporation, a leading producer of chemicals for industry and agriculture, has established an R&D centre at the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore, to drive research for its agriculture products business.
• DuPont has had profitable alliances with national research laboratories under the CSIR, since 1994. DuPont Textiles and Interiors and the Pune-based National Chemical Laboratory have extended their research alliance for another five years. Dupont Polyester has entered into a strategic alliance with Reliance Industries to jointly develop advanced polyester process and product technologies in India.

• Some of these alliances have re-written Indian scientific history. In Hyderabad, a contract between Shantha Biotechnique and CCMB led to India's first recombinant DNA-based vaccine, Shanvac, for Hepatitis B, transforming India's medical biotechnology industry. Midas Technologies, incubated by IIT Chennai's Tenet Group, proved that cheap rural connectivity could be married to a sound business plan. It made possible WLL, now adopted by many telecom companies. The returns are not limited to India. Software developed by the National Aeronautical Laboratory, Bangalore, determines aircraft landing frequency at British airports. -- India Today

Most big academic institutes now also have specific business development wings. IIT-Delhi's Foundation for Innovation and Technology Transfer, set up in 1992, was the first such wing at any IIT.

Seen as a prototype by other universities, it provides seed money and infrastructure support to a start-up for up to a year and such support for institutionalised innovation are beginning to yield results:

• In 2001, four scientists from IISC -- Vijay Chandru, Swamy Manohar, Ramesh Hariharan and V Vijay -- proved they could successfully explore new frontiers beyond the realms of pure science. With an initial contract of Rs 1.5 crore, they launched Strand Genomics, India's first biotech company spun off from an academic institute. Today Strand Genomics has an office in San Francisco, investment of about Rs 22 crore and 100 employees. -- India Today
• Five graduates and five professors at the computer sciences department in IIT-Delhi launched Kritical Solutions Private Limited a year ago with an initial seed funding of Rs 10 lakh. Their projects range from security solutions to sensor networks, many of them extensions of graduate theses. One project, looking at more effective, computerised screening of automobiles, could go a long way in preventing another attack like those in Mumbai recently. -- India Today

Other points of light

Finishing school for Innovation: 'NirmaLabs, an incubating initiative of Nirma Education and Research Foundation has established a fund of Rs 5 crore to support the incubation programmes. With a commitment of Rs 20 lakh per project as initial seed fund, the incubation programme enables participants to develop the concept further to a funding level. The programme is initially focusing on the IT, communication and entertainment sectors, with expansion in other sectors to soon follow. However, this is where this effort starts breaking off from other incubators.'

'NirmaLabs approach to incubation of high-technology, wealth-generating ventures is based on its ability to groom potential individuals to think differently with a global understanding of technology and markets and with sensitivity to challenges of high growth businesses. The three-staged programme commences with an eight-month grooming phase, during which the candidates will be groomed to identify an enterprising idea.'

'The incubation phase that follows soon will have mentors and venture capitalists acting as catalysts allowing the idea to be developed into a fundable enterprise. In the last phase, individuals will be allowed with opportunities for strategic networking.'

Co-ordinated research in strategic areas: Key strategic areas, where a national presence is required cannot be done in a handful of research labs or be looked into from a few angles only. One such area is the work on smart materials.

'Smart materials are the next frontier in engineering and manufacturing. What are they? Materials that respond to changes in temperature, moisture, pH, or electric and magnetic fields. Smart materials are poised to emerge from the lab in a wide range of medical, defense and industrial applications.'

'Understanding and using these advanced materials in your new product development efforts may make the difference between success and failure in today's intensely competitive markets.'

Nirupa Sen of JNU has put together an excellent article on the sum total of the work going on in India on smart materials, which gives us an idea of the spread of the research and the disparate angles from which this work is being carried out.

So, for example, design centres for smart materials include Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, Solid State Physics Laboratory, Delhi, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Bombay and IIT-Madras.

Manufacturing centres, include 1. Semiconductor Complex Limited, Chandigarh (which has a national foundry for MEMS devices), and 2. Bharat Electronics Limited, Bangalore (which is also being augmented for such purposes).

National Programmes of research in the area, include:

1. National Programme on Smart Materials -- NPSM is a joint programme run by DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation), through the Aeronautical Development Agency, Department of Space, Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Information Technology, and CSIR.

Aerospace has been identified as a major area of application of MEMS. The programme's aerospace division is concerned with R&D in devices used for sensing pressure, acceleration, rotational speed, temperature, strain, fibre-optic devices, actuators (piezo-ceramics, piezo-polymers, electro/magnetostrictive shape memory alloys, and the related chemicals and materials).

Currently, there are 30-odd research efforts funded across the nation under this program, in places like IITs, national labs and even smaller universities.

2. Development Initiative for Smart Aircraft Structures -- DISMAS: Executed by ADA, it is a five-year project sanctioned by DRDO in April 2001 at a cost of Rs 19.26 crore.

Areas of work are: Smart Health Monitoring; Vibration and Noise Control; Active Shape or flow control which is also known as Morphing; Conformal Antenna and Radome.

The Light Combat Aircraft has been identified as the platform of choice for developing and testing these concepts.

This is an example of how broad research areas must be attacked in a country like India -- the logistics of smart materials research in India is not a perfect example, but certainly a good one to start from.

It is not that we do not understand the need, but consider the meagre resources that we are putting into this:

The CSIR, under the leadership of 'CEO' R G Mashelkar, has now launched what he calls 'the largest post-Independence knowledge network,' the Rs 250-crore, five-year New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative. It aims at bringing together industry and academia to focus on innovation in 14 niche areas, including nanotechnology, climate modeling and fuel cell power. The idea is to make India a world leader in these areas. NMITLI is already working.

14 key areas and only 250 crore!

How do we expect to create an earth-shaking innovation every few years with this?

But, the broader question is where are the key gaps in our innovation infrastructure that India needs to fill in and how should we go about doing so?

Source : Rediff

Improve infrastructure to Bridge Rural-Urban divide

The lack of basic infrastructure plays a significant part in the persistence of poverty. Poor people need better connections to schools, health care, markets, essential services and each other. Almost all of the Millennium Development Goals depend on providing infrastructure: it is essential to replicate the success of community-based infrastructure projects, whilst learning from past mistakes.
A report from the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the United Nations Development Programme examines small-scale infrastructure projects in Bangladesh, Senegal, Thailand and Zambia. It connects these projects to broader issues of poverty, human security and governance.
Infrastructure helps reduce human poverty by directly improving access to health and educational services, providing people with cleaner energy and pro­tecting them against natural disasters. Reducing risk improves human security, for example avoiding droughts and flooding through effective water management. Infrastructure also enhances agricultural productivity, reduces transportation costs and generates more jobs and income.
Small-scale, community-based infrastructure projects can have significant impacts if local communities feel a sense of ownership. Local successes with infrastructure development demonstrate that decentralisation can establish competent local governments. Surrounding communities will feel more confident in designing and maintaining community-based infrastructure. As a result, good governance promotes effective infrastructure development, and infrastructure improvements support better governance.
The case studies show how infrastructure projects directly contribute to incomes, create employment and reduce poverty. The report highlights many initiatives that could be replicated elsewhere, including:
a project to build portable steel bridges in Bangladesh, which has provided women with safer and cheaper access to markets, health, education, employment and law enforcement servicesa ‘safe water’ project in Zambia, which has reduced the incidence of diarrhoea and saved time on water collection, whilst improving women’s safetyan integrated development project in Senegal, which has provided wells and health posts whilst training women as health workers and veterinary assistants, recognising their key roles in natural resource managementefforts in Thailand to make shrimp fishing more environmentally sustainable whilst guaranteeing farmers access to good quality irrigation water.If small-scale infrastructure services are to be pro-poor, they must be available, accessible, affordable, acceptable and adaptable. Donors must work together to assess probable impacts on poverty reduction when choosing which projects to support. They should give priority to small-scale infrastructure initiatives that have complementary components or multiple objectives.
Other key lessons include:
Gender issues are crucial: women should not just benefit from projects, but play an active role in designing, implementing and managing projects.State regulation should be minimal, except in the case of systems such as power transmission grids, which must remain as monopolies.Finance providers need to encourage the use of competitively selected local private sector suppliers, contractors and operators. This helps to ensure that appropriate technologies and materials are used, making local maintenance possible.Sustainability cannot be achieved without building local capacity and establishing ways to find sufficient funding for operation and maintenance. Training local people to manage and maintain infrastructure projects improves performance and reduces vandalism.

Rural - Urban Linkages

Developing suburban areas

For the majority of the world's poorest residents, local rural-urban linkages, investment patterns and population movements are probably far more important than the much touted global linkages, foreign direct investments, and international migration.

First, rural-urban linkages are important to achieve balanced economic growth. Isolated rural settlements that cannot tap local urban markets will not benefit from expanding global markets. Small urban centres bypassed by agricultural exporters will not play a dynamic role in regional development.

Second, rural urban linkages can reduce vulnerability, and play a critical role in the livelihood strategies of the poorest groups, both rural and urban. Low income rural dwellers often rely on urban-based non-farm jobs and on remittances and other transfers from migrant relatives. Low income urban dwellers often rely on seasonal farm jobs, and on the help of rural relatives in looking after children and family property.

Third, rural-urban interactions are often critical influences on natural resource use and management, especially in the sub-urban interface. But these linkages and interactions are usually neglected by both local government (which tends to divide rural and urban responsibilities) and national government (whose ministries rarely address urban rural linkages directly).

Rural-urban interactions can be defined as linkages across space (such as flows of people, goods, money, information and wastes) and linkages between sectors (for example, between agriculture and services and manufacturing). In broad terms, they also include 'rural' activities taking place in urban centres (such as urban agriculture) and activities often classified as 'urban' (such as manufacturing and services) taking place in rural settlements.

Action areas:

improve our understanding of how changing rural-urban interactions affect the livelihoods of low-income and vulnerable groups in urban and rural settlements (including developing appropriate methodologies);
support the capacity of local institutions and government to identify the opportunities and constraints for poverty reduction and regional development provided by rural-urban linkages, and act on them;
help develop a dialogue between national and local government to ensure a better integration between national macro-economic and sectoral policies and local initiatives.
The key focus areas

governance in decentralised structures, especially in small urban centres and Sub-urban areas
the role of urban centres in the development of their surrounding rural region
income diversification and rural non-farm employment
migration and mobility
transformations in sub-urban areas
Governance in decentralised structures, especially in small urban centres and Sub-urban areas


Because of the variations in the nature and scale of rural-urban interactions between and within nations, local governments are best placed to respond to location-specific needs and priorities. Decentralisation has great potential with regard to efficiency and democratic accountability, but often carries costs and constraints (such as insufficient revenue and capacity, and weak links with national planning). Special attention is given to the identification of ways to better support local governments, particularly in improving the role of small and intermediate urban centres in the development of their surrounding regions and in Sub-urban areas.

The role of urban centres in the development of their surrounding rural region


Access to urban markets is key to increasing incomes for rural and Sub-urban producers. Crucial dimensions include: physical infrastructure (including road networks and affordable transport); the relations between producers and traders; and farmers' information on how markets operate, including price fluctuations and consumer preferences. Special attention is also given to local urban markets as links to regional, national and international markets through the analysis of commodity supply chains.

Income diversification and rural non-farm employment


There is ample evidence that most rural (and in many cases urban) households rely on the combination of farm and non-farm income sources, thereby reducing fluctuations and risk and, in some cases, increasing their asset base. Research on this theme focuses on transformations in local labour markets (often influenced by globalisation) and how they affect different groups on the basis of gender, age, migrant status, ethnicity, wealth and location. Emerging issues such as the role of clustering in the development of small-scale enterprises, and opportunities in the growing tourism industry are also explored.

Migration and mobility


With urbanization and changing employment patterns, migration and mobility (such as commuting between rural settlements and urban centres) are increasingly important. Specific areas of interest are the differences and reasons behind in the mobility of different groups (including the often unintended impact of national macro-economic and sectoral policies), and the impact of migration on households and communities in both sending and receiving settlements.

Transformations in Sub-urban areas


The immediate periphery of urban centres often undergoes processes of extremely rapid transformation. There are many opportunities, such as increasing urban demand for high value horticultural and livestock produce which often trigger agricultural intensification; and non-farm employment opportunities help households diversify their income sources. But there can also be many constraints, which can result in the marginalisation of vulnerable residents and in environmental problems. Specific areas of interest are transformations in land tenure and natural resource management (and their impact on low-income groups), and the management of different types of wastes originating from the urban centre

Roots of poverty

Roots of poverty lies in failure of wealth creation, To create something from natural resources that adds value and generates income.

Rural-Urban Divide

This divide is due to the Absense of Infrastructure in Rural India and a failure of indian Nation Building.