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India Nurturing Homegrown Ideas

Uddhab Bharali wanted to be a mechanical engineer. But before he could get a college degree, his father developed and could no longer work. The youth decided to start manufacturing plastic bags to support his family. But the machine he needed cost $12,500, five times what he had in savings. So he built his own.

Twenty years later, he has invented 65 machines designed to do everything from peel garlic to extract the from pomegranates. Orders—and appeals for new inventions—have poured in from as far away as Los Angeles, Istanbul and Dubai.

Backyard inventors

India may be better known for its high-flying entrepreneurs who have turned the nation into a high-tech center and outsourcing mecca. But he still largely rural country also is as a center for smaller-scale innovation.

In farm sheds and machine shops and on small rural plots, India’s backyard inventors are coming up with creations that their backers hope will make it big, solve a few of the world’s problems, boost India’s exports, and continue cutting the country’s dismal poverty rate.

A pool of ideas

In northeast India alone, inventors have come up with a bicycle that drives added power to the gears when it bounces over a rut; and a motorboat capable of whisking fishermen, or eco-tourists, silently and pollution-free through river backwaters. To their credit, there’s also an ultra fuel-efficient engine, and a low-cost alarm system designed to alert pedestrians to oncoming trains in foggy weather.

There’s even a mechanical speed bump that generates electricity every time a car passes. “Not many societies emphasize the need to learn from common people,” said Anil Gupta, a leader of the government-backed National Innovation Foundation. But, he said, “We’re generating the pool of ideas for people to invest in.”

Vocabulary Focus

Pour in (phr v)---  to arrive continuously and in large amounts

Come up with (phr v)---  to suggest or think of an idea or plan

Drive (v)---  to provide the power to keep a machine working

Whisk (v)--- to make something or someone somewhere else suddenly and quickly

Specialized terms

Mecca (n)--- 吸引人潮的胜地 A place to which many people are attracted