Yesterday and Tomorrow in India Today

hamidm2 #29

You get me wrong - I prefer that Indian govts. encourage orders of magnitude growth of the domestic INTERNAL Indian economy and not run after dollars - which provide a good nest egg for foreign consultants and politicians but may not help the thela wallas - whose living standards depend on revenues earned mostly from the internal economy.

And the environment problem will not go away - whether we hug trees or not.

Let me explain with simple example( I am not an economist ) - Take a traditional potter in a village in Maharashtra - I would prefer he live in his own village(with electricity, water and schools) in his traditional milieu and his pottery be marketed all over India to fetch good prices/earnigns for him than that he migrate to Mumbai, pay a large portion of his earnings to live in a cramped city/slum dwelling without adequate facilities and work in the assembly line of a factory belching smoke which produce plain white ceramic mugs marketed by a big chain store.

http://knownetgrin.honeybee.org/gian/innovationsdetails/aaruni.htm

Now take a look at this tilting bullock cart. Im sure hamidm can take a licence on this design and improve it to make a kind of flat bed tow bullock cart which can lift heavy machinery and good with ease.

It could also possibly be a very good business to lift broken down suzuki hatch back cars(maruti 800 in India) of the highway to the nearest mechanic!!

Imagine hamidm faltbed tow bullock cart company(hamidm-ftbcc) traded on the NYSE with a symbol of ftbcc.

#31 by sadna on June 8, 2003 1:54pm PT

I agree with you fully.. I interact with a few NGO`s here. I keep trying to guide these projects to think about the social and economic benift in keeping the people in the villages. Of course this does not mean that they should be poor.

the skills available in the villages are amazing what they lack is structure and innvoation. Most NGOs have the target to improve health, education etc. I take upon myself to put the question of what happens after the kids get education(as we define our present education)? they certainly would like to move to the cities to become clerks, or doctors, engginers, or whatever they imagine. But going by the number who fail to achive their targets it is a crime not to think of alternative solutions.

The skills available in most of india is amazing. That the poor no longer know the value of their skills because of lack of knowledge of larger socitey world wide and lack the means to turn this into a viable social/economic solution.
however there is some work being done.

here take a look...

Here the story is about the Jooti maker Im sure the potter could benfit form such a action.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EE22Df02.html

re: studebaker

{But i thaught Sadna was more happy without them ? So why do we need lothes to beproseperously happy ..... }

...mistaken identity: must be your wife and sister....i have pics of it to prove it....

dost-mittarji in join you in your travels ableit of the web kind

here are some reports..

http://www.nifindia.org/secondaward/details/innovators/27mistry.htm

Late Shri Poonamchand Lakha Mistry born in 1914 in a poor family, was an outstanding innovator of his time. He was the eldest among four brothers. He thought about several problems affecting common people as well as large systems like railways. In some cases he succeeded with the actual prototype and a few remained just as his dream. Poonamchand couldn`t continue his education after fifth standard because he had to assist his father in carpentry work. While pursuing carpentry, he developed interest in creative activities, and

..at the age of 17, he prepared a functional miniature steam loco-engine. The then administrator of British government instead of encouragement, advised him to destroy his loco-engine...

He, however, stashed away his creation but this incident couldn`t suppress his creative talent to develop innovative things

...He invented a device to catch unauthorized person`s wristcuff trying to open a locker/safe using wrong key...

....He designed a unique ``wise platform ticket machine`` which would reject counterfeit coins and needed no external power. It was patented in 1939. The machine was demonstrated before the railway authorities at Bombay in 1941. It satisfied them fully and they placed an order for six more machines to replace the British made machines..

........Another Innovator.

http://www.nifindia.org/secondaward/details/innovators/8kanak.htm

. On August 15, 1999, an idea struck him about using the energy wasted in shock absorbers for propelling the rear wheel so as to supplement the pedal function. When cycle bumps on an uneven road or undulating terrain, the force induced by the bump and rider`s weight is stored in a battery of six springs attached under the pedal. In the first prototype, there was a problem with reverse pedaling. It was overcome by designing a new model.

Kanak Das`s cycle would not slow down after bumps as conventional bicycles do. It would accelerate after every bump because of its ability to convert vertical movement due to bumps into horizontal propulsion.

.........
another innovation which could be marketed to the innumerable people who go bicycling, sailing in US..

http://www.nifindia.org/secondaward/details/innovators/9satyanarayana.htm

Shri. Satyanarayana has innovated Micro windmill driven battery charger. This device is miniature version of power windmills and harnesses wind energy to generate sufficient electrical potential to recharge batteries of cellular phones, walkman, palmtops, laptops etc. The portable gadget can be used when one travels long-distance in trains or buses for recharging the batteries. Cost wise, it will be much less expensive than using dry cells.

The windmill employs a blade measuring 10 cm in diameter and the overall size of the unit is 3.5 x 3 cm. It produces direct current (DC) flow of up to one ampere at a potential difference of 12 volts. The current generated is sufficient to operate most portable electronic devices, currently operated with the use of dry cell batteries.


.........
another innovation that I have a personal intrest. Im talking to my friend to see if we can make use of this to make a viable product after further minutarising these IC`s through VLSI design based on small production run semiconductors to make it less energy dependant and more flexible in terms of capability and perhaps capable of being manufacutrued in large numbers and then having accessories which can perform differnt function.

http://www.nifindia.org/secondaward/details/innovators/11premsingh.htm

The robot designed by Prem Singh can be guided by the modified remote control used for televisions. It can recognize the obstacles in its way and move in the desired direction through a visible light sensor. It can be adapted to take photographs with a camera attached to it. Due to its reach in some of the humanly inaccessible areas, it could help in mines, locating survivors in fallen buildings as well in defense. The robot has 40 ICs (integrated circuits), more than two hundred transistors and 900 resistors apart from other components. It also has 10 wheels, 5 motors, 6-volt battery and a few sensors.

The robot is also able to work as a fire alarm and indicate humidity levels. It also has a small device to launch a missile or a bomb for defense purposes. In addition, he has thought about ideas of giving automatic signal to the trains on a single track coming closer to each other within a specified distance, so as to avoid accidents

....

A hike in the woods to charge your batteries?

take a look.

http://www.nifindia.org/secondaward/details/innovators/18rajesh.htm

In the lower layer of the shoe, a dynamo and a gear could be attached. When the shoe would be pressed against the ground, the rotor of the dynamo would rotate due to the weight of the body. Hence, electricity would be generated and the rechargeable batteries would get charged. There was no product of this kind in the country. However, PCT application 0221955 (October, 2002) resembles the concept but not the mechanism. The fact that there is only one such prior reference, highlights the importance of the idea and proposed mechanism.

Tipu #14

`` Bbabu this hero-worship of south that may be extension of adulation and devotion to one deity most manifest in figures like Jaylaliyha,N.T.Rama Rao ,Shivaji Ganeshan many of them silly disproportionate ``mooviestar`is also more marked in South. ``

Hedge is not a movie star. He was a career politician. MGR and NTR were better than those stupid Congress high comand appointees. I used to deride his MGR`s noon meal scheme for poor kids attending school in Tamilnadu. I have to conceede that it has brought a large chunk of poor people in Tamilnadu into the literate category.

Tamilnadu is a much more advanced state than it was 20 years ago. This in all aspects. Education and economic opportunities have helped in spite of a bad corrupt rule by Jayalalitha. It helps not to have large numbers of backward Deobandi Muslims. All this is happening with a hot civil war in Sri Lanka.

this was the link
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=413385

a bit unreleated but check this out..

US film producer pleads guilty to beheading his own director
By David Usborne in New York
08 June 2003


Three weeks after a first screening of his film about an Afghan refugee navigating western culture in America, producer Nathan Powell finds himself in prison this weekend after pleading guilty to killing his director and stuffing his severed head in a freezer.

...

tahmed32 etc apologists for america..

some good reason may countries have to be suspicions of all american activites in thier countries including relif organisations..

here is what the prosecution said in the above case..

. Prosecutors later revealed that Mr Wassel had given the US authorities 80 hours of film showing roads and mountain passes in his native country to help American intelligence to plan their subsequent invasion of Afghanistan.

ali87 #40

Nobody said that America has no crime. The state makes a strong attempt to punish as many as them as possible within the rules of the system. I will conceed that they became too lenient in the 1960s and 1970s. America has a better justice system whether you are a victim or the culprit.

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ali87

.......... i have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say with your example of the bullock-powered dump truck ..........are you saying that this is what farmers in india and pakistan should be using instead of tractors and real dump trucks? ..........and what was the point in the post about the local shoes? ..... do you know how uncomfortable those cheap ``khusas`` are and how limited that market is compared to nikes and reeboks? .............all this talk about encouraging cottage industries and preserving rural traditions is bunkum sponsored by people who can`t see beyond their nose.............. you cannot build a modern economy by selling cheap pottery made by the village potter and his foolish apprentice on a foot-powered wheel!.......... it is a waste of time and energy and something silly idle women do in pottery class ............ the answer is to set up factories that export reeboks that sell for a hundred bucks apiece, and calphalon frying pans that sell for two hundred a piece so that the shoe-maker and the potter can make enough money to buy imported beer and locally made cars............

............ that is how china is doing it ........ the potters and the shoe makers are providing dishes and shoes to folks living in the hamptons .........and last year they made and bought over a million cars and this year they will sell over a million and a quarter ..........now that is real growth!...........and let`s not even begin to compare china to india - there is no comparison ............. shanghai is comparable to manhattan, not mumbai ........... and contrary to what sadna thinks, this phenomenal growth is all driven by exports, not by quaint village crafts sold to city folks who quibble over paying a hundred rupees for a plate of idlee ................. that is how spain did it after franco (its growth was almost entirely fuelled by multinationals), that is how ireland did it, and that is how china is doing it ............. and that is exactly what the indian it industry has done .............

.......... let us not get hung up on idealistic nonsense about preserving our cultural heritage and local industries - there is no demand for cheap khadar spun on a hand wheel or putrid goat milk ............

#41 by bbabu on June 8, 2003 4:29pm PT

are you presuming that I am saying that US is country full of criminals on basis of this article?

Great article. While the north is behind, there is much admiration for the southern models and everyone from Amarinder Singh to Digvijay Singh to Budhadeb is trying to move in that direction.

In fairness, Jaisalmer vs. Bangalore is not a fair comparison. Comparing Pune or Noida to Bangalore would be more even handed. Also interior of South (especially parts of AP and Karnataka) can reveal some stunning backwardness. BTW, all our Infosys people are from Mohali near Chandigarh.

By the way I read a wonderful quote about our besharam Vishwa Hinsa Parishad cretins: engaged in destroying India`s future so that it can have an ideal past !!!