Unsung heroes and heroines of science in India

Several times I have mentioned that curiosity, creativity, passion, necessity, a desire to help people around and dedication are very important in discovering/inventing in science. Whether you have high IQ or not, whether you are trained or not, you can go beyond your limitations and achieve great success in the field if you really want to. That is not undermining training. Training is very important, but  if you cannot have it, you need not worry. Trail and error methods used by earlier scientists can sometimes yield good results too although it takes a longer time to reach your goal this way. You still can achieve what great scientists have achieved if you have the will to succeed.

Yes, there are some scientists who are totally unknown, who have developed some great techniques which are very much beneficial for the mankind in the long term.

Here are a few examples of such people:

1. N. Sakthimainthan
Hand operated water lifting pump
Hand-operated water lifting device N. Sakthimainthan S/o. G. Nagayan, No. 13, Sarkarai Kullath Theru, Nannilam, Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu 610 105 Background N.Sakthimainthan (47) has devised a simple low-head hand operated water-lifting device, which is capable of giving high discharge.

He is a farmer, an innovator, a poet and priest at the Kali Temple in Nannilam, a small town in Thiruvarur district. Living on the banks of river Cauvery, he has developed many products for the Tanjavur Delta farmers. To call him a versatile genius would be an understatement.

Due to economic difficulties, he dropped out of school in sixth standard and joined his father’s profession of working as a priest. It was in the temple that he started displaying his extraordinary skills of composing devotional and secular poetry, song compositions and writing compelling secular essays.

His lyrics have been used in famous songs, sung by renowned playback singers such as T. M Soundarajan, Seergalai Govinda Rajan, during orchestra at the temple. Radio Ceylon, All India Radio and FM stations have also broadcast his poetry and stories. He has even received a letter of appreciation from the President, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam for one of his poems.

With his unquenchable thirst for knowledge, while leading a busy life, he has enrolled himself for B. Litt (Tamil) as a distance-learning course.

Apart from the water-lifting device, he has developed a low cost rope-making machine, which uses paddy straw and a self-operating irrigation pipe device to open and close canal pathways in the field according to water levels. He is keen to develop more of such farm implements and feels he can do that if he gets fund from government or private organization. His innovations have been widely covered in the vernacular press in Tamil Nadu.

He was cultivating paddy in one acre of cultivable land given to the temple. To meet his water needs, he used to laboriously collect the overflowing rainwater or water from nearby fields, using a bowl like structure made of discarded tyre tubes. This also required additional labour to lift and throw the water into the fields.

Therefore, he decided to build a hand operated water-lifting device to irrigate fields from canal or pond and drain out excess water from cultivated land.

He started working out a solution to address this problem. Once, while washing implements in stagnant water, he noticed that water was moving in opposite direction. This gave him the idea of water harvesting machine, which would flush out the stagnant water from fields. First, he developed it using wooden propeller and an iron rod to rotate but this mechanism was not up to the mark, as the water would flow back.

He started to think of ideas to modify it. Then he came to know that a blacksmith, who lived near the temple, was leaving the village. Sakthimainthan convinced this man of leaving him the air blowing device used in smithy work, for research purposes. Having got his hands on it, he used the air-blower to create vacuum suction for inflowing water and placed the impellers inside that envelope.

Next problem he faced was the difficulty in operating handle with this integration of impeller and air blowing device. He then fixed a chain and sprocket mechanism to overcome the trouble. Now there was a better pumping action, but still some splashes of water used to come on the face of user while rotating handle. To address this problem, he made a two-drive system with four impeller blades.

Then he built the final version, after refining the dual drive system idea using iron frames, tin box, and with cycle chain and sprocket mechanism. While facing financial difficulties, incomprehension and ridicule from some of the fellow villagers, his hardship continued for a period of fifteen years.
During which, he made five different versions of machine to get it right finally.

While participating in a water-harvesting workshop, he showed working of this product to the collector and local people and was much appreciated. The product was also demonstrated at the Aduthurai Agricultural College in Kumbakonam and authorities there recommended it for a journal published by Agricultural University.

Low head high discharge pumps are common though most of them are power operated. However, manually operated bucket pump, rope pump and bicycle powered pumps are the other alternatives. The hand-operated water-lifting device developed by Sakthimainthan is simple in design and has high discharge at low cost compared to conventional hand pumps, manual bucket pump, and bicycle operated pumps.

Tamil Nadu Agriculture University has appreciated efforts of Sakthimaithan in developing this pump from locally available materials. Their field-tests show that at the discharge angle of 26°, range of discharge achieved is projected at 18,000 to 30,000 lph for 0.5m lift and 9,000 to 22,500 lph for 0.75m lift, depending on operator’s efficiency.

Some dimensions of current product are being considered for improvement. Since the discharge pipe is immersed in water continuosly, it would get corroded over time and would need substitution by stainless steel pipe. Operating the unit by hand is difficult for long periods, and hence, a pedal operated version with provision for sitting is being considered.

With zero installation and no running or maintenance cost, this is a very useful product for marginal farmers. Being portable to fit at any site, and simple to use, it is best suited for their routine work in all seasons. It requires just one person to run the equipment. Sakthimainthan plans to build new lighter versions using engineering plastics, such that casing and impellers can be made lighter. Patent filing process for the machine has been initiated.

Innovator feels that technologies suitable for marginal farmers are too few and he wants to spend all his time in developing simple low cost technologies related to agriculture. He feels that “technologies existing in the present world are for big farmers, the marginal farmers are still deprived of basic needs and good technologies”.

Patent has been filed for the innnovation by NIF. His pump was also taken up for value addition by CMERI, Durgapur, West Bengal under the NIF-CSIR MOU. NIF also awarded him in its Fourth National Award Function for Grassroots Innovations.

2. Archana Konwar

Crutches with shock absorbers


Assam village girl gets third award for crutches with shock absorbers
The girl developed the shock-absorbing crutches in 2010 after seeing the plight of a physically challenged person walking with great difficulty with a home-made wooden pair of crutches.

Archana Konwar developed the shock-absorbing crutches in 2010 after seeing the plight of a physically challenged person walking with great difficulty with a home-made wooden pair of crutches.
Archana Konwar, a girl from a remote village in Dhemaji district in eastern Assam has been chosen for the sixth NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design awards for developing crutches with shock absorbers, this being the third award she has got for the same innovation in five years.
The award, instituted by National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and Mphasis, a global IT service provider, will be given away in the national capital on Friday. Archana is among eleven winners of this award given in three different categories. Archana, who hails from Bordolopa, a village in Dhemaji district, about 470 kms from Guwahati, had developed the shock-absorbing crutches in 2010 after seeing the plight of a physically challenged person walking with great difficulty with a home-made wooden pair of crutches as she went to school every day. “I could see and also feel that the man felt a lot of pain in his underarms because of the pressure exerted by the traditional wooden crutches.
The plight of the man made me think for several days, many weeks, until I found one way of improving upon the crutches by adding shock absorbers that would reduce the pain. I sent my idea with sketches and drawings to the National Innovation Foundation which immediately accepted it and helped me develop a new pair of crutches,” Archana, who was then a Class VII student at the Butikor High School near her village, said. She is currently pursuing a BA course with Major in sociology at the Dhemaji College.

This incidentally is the third award for her five-year old innovation that has already become popular after the NIF extended support to it. While she received the IGNITE from the hands of former president APJ Abdul Kalam in 2010 at IIM Ahmedabad, three years later she was chosen for 7th Biennial Awards for Grassroots Innovation and Outstanding Traditional Knowledge organised by NIF , this given away by president Pranab Mukherjee in 2013.

Youngest of three children of Labanya Konwar and primary school teacher Biren Kumar Konwar, Archana says she is proud that one “small” innovation has got her so many recognitions.

3. Mr. Dadaji Ramji Khobragade

He is from Nanded, Maharashtra won national award for inventing new varieties of Rice, you can't believe on his qualification he failed in class three but still done a job which can't be done by qualified scientists.

Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade (65) grew up in a small forest village called Nanded in Naghbid taluka of Chandrapur district in Maharashtra. He left school after the 3rd standard due to adverse economic conditions and also because his help was necessary in the farm. Currently, he is the only earning member of his family, which comprises his son (who does not earn due to his ill health), his daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. He owns 1.5 acres of land and his income is Rs.12, 000 per annum. At present Dadaji Ramaji also cultivates three acres, once given to his son by a relative.He had to sell two acres due to the illness of his son. Occasionally he works as a daily wage labourer to support his seven-member family.

Genesis In 1983 Dadaji Ramaji noticed three yellow seeded paddy spikes commonly called as ‘lomb’ in 1.12 acres field, planted with the Patel 3 variety of paddy. He picked these three spikes, brought them home and stored them in a plastic bag. The next year he sowed the seeds of this yellow variety separately in the middle of his field. As his field was close to the jungle he planted the rice amid a fence of thorny bushes to protect it from pigs and other wild life. Observing the high yield of this variety, he preserved the seeds. The following year he cultivated the seeds separately and got nearly ten kilograms of husked rice. On cooking the seeds he found them to be tastier than the Patel variety.

In 1988 he sowed four kg of seeds in an area of 10 ft X 10 ft and produced 400 - 450 kg of rice. The next year 100 – 150 kg seeds were sown from which he obtained 50 bags of paddy and he sold the seeds (40 bags) to one of the traders at Nagpur. Since the name of the variety was not known, the trader purchased the seeds in the name of Swarna Sona. Soon he began distributing this new variety to local farmers on their demand.

In 1990 Bhimrao Shinde, a large land owner in Nanded, bought 150 kilograms of seeds and sowed it in four acres of land. He obtained 90 bags of yield and sold the same to a trader from Talodi. The trader gave the name HMT to this variety as HMT watches were very popular at that time and he had recently acquired a new one. Ever since the name HMT has stuck.

In 1994 Khobragade was approached by the Sindewahi Rice Station, a part of Punjabrao Krishi Vidyapith. It took five kilograms of seeds of the new variety under the pretext of experimenting. But in 1998 they released a new variety named PKV HMT. They claimed that Khobragade’s variety was ‘impure’ and that they purified the local HMT and released it under its new avatar called PKV HMT. To Khobragade there is no apparent difference between his and theirs.

He was not getting the importance which he deserve its just like Punjabrao Krushi Vidyapeeth stole his idea and made their own brand which fetching much more price per bag than other regular varieties, but by this incident he haven't bogged down he again started experimenting and developed another five varieties of rice which are giving even more yield that his previous inventions, to one he also gave his own name "DRK".

After a long fight and journey local newspapers, gram panchyat taken the cognizance of the matter and published about the misery he received despite inventing such a breakthrough.

At the end government recognised him and gave him National Awards for agricultural invention in the Biennial award function.

4. Anjamma

Expertise in traditional methods of agriculture has placed Anjamma, a woman farmer from Gangwar village of Medak district, among the top scientists and officials from Central and state institutions as a member of Telangana state’s Agri-Biodiversity Committee.

• Expertise in traditional methods of agriculture has placed Anjamma, a woman farmer from Gangwar village of Medak district, among the top scientists and officials from Central and state institutions as a member of Telanganas Agri-Biodiversity Committee.

• Despite being illiterate, facing social backwardness and poverty, Ms Anjammas faith never wavered in the traditional methods of farming.

• When she and her husband worked as agricultural labourers, they saved money by living in a small thatched hut.

• The farmer couple successfully cultivated up to five varieties of millets on the land.

Anjamma's strength lies in the diverse varieties of seeds of millets and pulses she owns. After harvest, the best seeds are kept aside for planting for next season. she never buys from companies. The seeds are stored as per traditional methods with ash in a cane basket, topped with neem leaves and sealed with a mixture of cow dung and mud. The seeds stay fresh and insect free for more than a year this way, according to her. she does farming on four acres of land where she plants 14 varieties of seven types of millets and pulses along with some leafy vegetables. The crops selected are such that if one fails due to climatic change there would be another which can withstand it and give her yield.

Just by using traditional farming knowledge, she gets good results.

Fourth story source: DC

5. Mansukh Bhai Prajapati

The Man Who Invented A Clay Fridge That Runs Without Electricity :

Prajapati invented “Mitticool” which runs without electricity and also  preserves the original taste of the food items. Apart from a fridge, he  has invented non-stick earthen tavas, earthen thermos flasks, etc.

Mansukh bhai Prajapati, a traditional clay craftsmen, has transformed  traditional clay items into an innovative range of products which he  calls Mitticool, ‘mitti’ meaning clay in Hindi.


Entrepreneurial Streak

• In 1988, he left his job and took a loan of Rs. 30,000 to start his own  earthen plate manufacturing factory. He sold one pan for 0.65 paisa and  within 2 days he could sell the entire 1st batch.

• This continued for  some time. However, he started getting negative feedback from customers  regarding the durability of the tavas (pans). He then experimentally  varied the proportions of clay to get a mix which was more heat  resistant and durable.

• In 1990, he got his unit company registered. And in 1995 he got a bulk  export order for water filters from Nairobi, Kenya. Finally, the Trade  Mark ‘Mitticool’ was registered in 2001.

 

Idea for Mitticool Fridge

• In 2002, he started working on the refrigerator design and came in  contact with GIAN (Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network), which  assisted him in various stages of product development.
• The principle of cooling used in this simple machine is the same as that  of earthen pots. It does not require electricity or any artificial  energy and therefore has no recurring costs.         
• GIAN facilitated design improvements in the fridge through National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad.       

Non Stick Earthen Tava

• Mansukhbhai’s  wife once asked him to bring a non-stick tava from the market. At that  time, in 2003, he found out that a non-stick tava costed Rs. 200.  Manusukh bhai did some more market research and found out that apart  from being costly, Teflon coated non-stick tavas do not retain the  natural taste of food . Also, the coating tends to wear off quite soon.
• Mansukhbhai also learnt the  process of non-stick coating on pans  and after about a year of research and making one lakh trial tavas, he  finally succeeded in developing the non-stick coating for earthen pans  using Azo Noble.
• Mansukh bhai’s non-stick earthen tava uses less oil  than a normal pan and preserves the natural flavor of food. It is much  cheaper than non-stick tavas and consumes less LPG as well.

 

        
GIAN also helped him to set up a company, Clay Creations, in 2008 and assisted him in developing the online retail portal (www.mitticool.in).

Mitticool has a turnover of Rs. 45 lakhs and employs 35 people.  Mitti-Cool’s products have reached countries like Africa and Dubai apart  from many cities in India. The manner in which Mansukhbhai has brought  forward the traditional business of clay craftsmanship to newer heights  with his entrepreneurial abilities, is truly commendable. Moreover, his  innovation has resulted in a low cost technology that does not require  electricity to run!

6. Arunachalam Muruganantham 

Muruganantham is a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. He is the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad making machine and has innovated grass-roots mechanisms for generating awareness about traditional unhygienic practices around menstruation in rural India. His mini-machines, which can manufacture sanitary pads for less than a third of the cost of commercial pads, have been installed in 23 of the 29 states of India. He is currently planning to expand the production of these machines to 106 nations. In 2014, TIME magazine placed him in its list of 100 Most Influential People in the World

Early life
Muruganantham was born in 1962 to S. Arunachalam and A. Vanita, hand-loom weavers in Coimbatore, India. Muruganantham grew up in poverty after his father died in a road accident. His mother worked as a farm labor to help in his studies. However, at the age of 14, he dropped out of school. He supplied food to factory workers and took up various jobs as machine tool operator, yam selling agent, farm laborer, welder, etc. to support his family.

Invention
In 1998, he got married to Shanthi. Shortly after, Murugananthan discovered his wife collecting filthy rags and newspapers to use during her menstrual cycle as sanitary napkins made by multinational corporations were expensive. Troubled by this, he started designing experimental pads. Initially, he made pads out of cotton, but these were rejected by his wife and sisters. Eventually, they stopped co-operating with him and refused to be the test subjects for his innovations. He realized that the raw materials cost 10 paise ($0.002), but the end product sold for 40 times that price. He looked for female volunteers who could test his inventions, but most were too shy to discuss their menstrual issues with him. He started testing it on himself, using a bladder with animal blood, but became the subject of ridicule when the "sanitary pad" was discovered in his village. As menstruation is a taboo subject in India, it left him ostracized by his community and family. He distributed his products free to girls in a local medical college, provided they returned them to him after use.
It took him two years to discover that the commercial pads used cellulose fibers derived from pine bark wood pulp. The fibers helped the pads absorb while retaining shape. Imported machines that made the pads cost INR 35 million. So, he devised a low-cost machine that could be operated with minimal training.He sourced the processed pine wood pulp from a supplier in Mumbai and the machines would grind, de-fibrate, press and sterilize the pads under ultraviolet before packaging them for sale. The machine costs INR 65,000.

Rural women meeting as members of self-help groups (SHGs)

In 2006, when he visited IIT Madras to show his idea and get suggestions. They registered his invention for the National Innovation Foundation's Grassroots Technological Innovations Award and his idea won the award. He obtained seed funding and founded Jayaashree Industries, which now markets these machines to rural women across India.The machine has been praised for its simplicity and cost-effectiveness, and his commitment to social aid has earned him several awards.Despite offers from several corporate entities to commercialize his venture, he has refused to sell out and continues to provide these machines to self-help groups (SHGs)run by women.
Muruganantham's invention is widely praised as a key step in changing women's lives in India. Muruganantham's machine creates jobs and income for many women, and affordable pads enable many more women to earn their livelihood during menstruation. In addition to his own outreach, Muruganantham's work has also inspired many other entrepreneurs to enter this area,including some that propose to use waste banana fibre or bamboo for the purpose.
Popular culture
Muruganantham has become well known as a social entrepreneur. He has given lectures at many institutions including IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad, IIM Bangalore and Harvard. He has also given a TED talk. His story was the subject of a prize-winning documentary by Amit Virmani, Menstrual Man.

7. GULAB Devi (45) of Harmara village in Rajasthan’s Ajmer district comes across as the quintessential rural woman from Rajasthan. Dressed in the traditional ghagra-choli (long skirt and blouse), Gulab is the sole bread-earner for her four children and her ailing husband who hasn’t had a job in the 24 years of their marriage. Gulab is completely illiterate. Ask her what she does for a living, and she’ll tell you she makes electronic circuits and charges for solar lighting panels. And before you start wondering whether you heard her wrong, she’ll tell you that she also installs and maintains hand pumps, water tanks and pipelines. Not only is she running her household comfortably with her salary from this work, she is also one of the most respected members of her community.

Gulab is one of the many Barefoot Solar Engineers (BSEs) working across eight Indian states (Rajasthan, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Uttaranchal, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Sikkim) to establish solar energy systems in areas where electricity supply is either non-existent or highly erratic. A majority of these engineers, mostly women, are illiterate like Gulab or semi-literate at best. But they talk of transformers, coils and condensers like other women would talk of cooking and sewing. Their dexterity with spanners and screwdrivers is impressive, to say the least. The Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources, the European Commission and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) support the Barefoot Solar Engineering Programme. It is implemented by the Barefoot College, also known as the Social Work Research Centre or SWRC, and NGO based in Tilonia, Rajasthan. Set up by noted social worker Bunker Roy, the Barefoot College addresses community problems.

"The focus is on sustainable use of solar energy. People should be able to do their own solar engineering according to their own needs," says Bhagwat Nandan Sewda, the focal person of the BSE programmes. Affectionately referred to as guruji, Sewda runs solar training programs for people from all over the country.

Source of story 7: http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/didyouknow.8.html

8. Mohammad Raees Markani

This person is from Madhya Pradesh and invented a car that can run on a mixture of water and acetylene gas.

He is a local car mechanic from 15 years and has been working on his 800cc maruti since last 5 years. This car can run under 2p/km.

The best part about him is that he never went to school and cannot read and write. He loves his hometown and he want the companies to open the plant at the same place.

9. Ajay Trakroo

The motorcycle-ambulance is a new concept in India that is saving lives in remote regions where people had been dying because they could not make it to the hospital on time.

What a great initiative by Ajay Trakroo. The motorcycle-ambulance has saved the lives of over 200 pregnant women and helped see a drop in maternal and infant mortality rate in the Maoist-hit Narayanpur district of Bastar division in Chhattisgarh.

Ajay Trakroo says the motorcycle-ambulance project was initiated last year and supported by the UNICEF in collaboration with an NGO, Saathi Samaj Sevi Sanstha, and the Health Department of the state government. As of now there is only one motorcycle-ambulance in the entire state which serves the pregnant women and other serious patients in whole of Bastar division. Though 108 ambulance services operate in Narayanpur, these cannot reach deep into the forest or hilly terrain where many villages are situated. This is where the motorcycle ambulance plays a vital role. We will bring 10 more motorcycle ambulances in a few months.

Source: Motorcycle-ambulances help saves lives in Chhattisgarh forests
Motorbike-Ambulance Is The Life Saviour Of Villagers In Remote Area...