Are we really doing any research in Bharat?? The Ethmos Innovation Index

Going from research to innovation - The Ethmos Innvoation Index

First of all we thank all our readers for receiving well our previous article on research funding through banks but we are really sorry to note that we did not receive a single brickbat from anybody - please somebody criticize us; we are the perpetual attention seekers and are dying to seek your attention because your attention to our issues is required for resolution of the various issues plaguing our nation and the world at large.

In this article we are asking a very basic question to our readers - the junta of Bharat - are we really doing research in our country?  We feel proud to have ancestors like Aryabhatta, Charaka, Brahmabhatta, etc. who were pioneers in their own fields of science and have literally changed the way world used to see things during their times - in fact, they were much ahead of their times.  But sadly enough we have wasted our legacy.  In today's world, research has lost its originality to a large extent and is confined to the publishing of research and review articles on "impact-factor"-graded journals.  The higher the impact factor of the journal, the better the quality of your research considered as per the standard norms.  But in Bharat, very few researchers are engaged in research which is up to the expected level of these journals and the practical applications of these research works are seldom known even to the person conducting the research.  In fact, research has become a very comfortable way of claiming grants from University Grants Commission (UGC) or any other government body like Department of Science and Technology (DST), etc. and use them as you like, which includes but is not limited to foreign tours in the name of paper presentation/conferences/seminars, grants for purchase of equipment and chemicals which hardly have any use after one or two experiments, and "n" number of creative ways of utilizing public money for purposes other than research and development.

We believe that the actual research is done at the ground level - i.e. by people actually working in the industry like the farmers who are experimenting on a monthly basis to improve the quality of their produces, people living in the remote corners of the country who hybridize bicycles and motors to make their own concocted motorcycles that run on steam or solar energy, and much more.  Recently, a person from Rajkot, Gujarat, named Mansukhbhai Prajapati, who hardly had any formal education, innovated on a rural refrigeration system using the potter clay and named it "Mitticool"

The Mitticool refrigerator developed by Mansukhbhai Prajapati

and the refrigeration system was efficient at not only providing cool water but also keeping perishable food items like fruits/vegetables for longer duration of time thereby saving on multiple traveling costs to far away market places on a daily basis for procurement of the same.  Fortunately, the innovator was able to find investors and has started his own business by mass production of these useful and eco-friendly machine that does not use any electricity at all to keep things cool.  These root-level innovators are the actual researchers of the country who are seldom funded by any UGC, DST, DBT, etc. but are doing whatever they can from their own savings and borrowings from friends and relatives (and if they are lucky and enterprising enough, they get funding from investors too!) and the only thing that keeps them going is the unlimited enthusiasm to do something for the society at large.

We want to ask - are our researchers also motivated towards the larger good of the society and the country at large?  How many patents are we filing on an yearly basis?  We don't agree much with the people who think that publishing research articles is the yardstick of innovative work - what we consider is whether your ideas are fructified and the fruits available to the general public for use?

As discussed in our previous article, we strongly believe that funding should be available to researchers and innovators regardless of their educational qualifications or background.  And since we are born "doers" we introduce to you our own Ethmos Innovation Index which will do investment-grade credit rating of innovative ideas; help them nurture, incubate, and get the required crucial seed funding and give them end-to-end consulting solutions - the primary condition for all this being that your idea has to be strong enough to attract us - just attract us and we will attract the rest towards you.  So if any of you innovators or researchers out there are interested in this proposition, you can mail us your requirements at teamethmos@gmail.com.

Let us stop talking and start doing and do something towards the growth of our society and nation.

Happy Ethmos to all!