Indian Innovation, Not Jugaad: 100 Ideas that Transformed India

just finished reading this wonderful compilation of Innovations in India in last 75 years.Dinesh Sharma has done an excellent job of showing what India has achieved after becoming an independent nation.This a story of our generation!I can relate to most of the innovations and people who were involved!Just to name few:When he writes about IIMA & Prof Ravi Matthai it becomes very personal as I had the honour of being his student during 1975-77 doing project with him in Jawaja.Similary he quotes Prof Anil Gupta who was my two years senior at HAU Hisar when I joined that campus in 1970 and have been in innovation journey for last 52 years.i can go onThis book is a must read for all those who wish to care about India and know how the country has been built from low literacy of 12% to 74%,life expectancy almost doubling!He has covered comprehensively from Food,water,sanitaion,health,transport,Information technolgy,Governance,Education,Grasssroots,Environment ,Culture & thriving democratic movements.Invariably China always comes for comparision.While China has gone ahead in Economic terms,but it can't match us on individual choices,liberty,freedom!In my definition chaotic democracy is far better then a command system which China has built.All in all we can take lot of pride in our achievements and make it a base to move forward to the next 75 years!Well done Dinesh Sharma!

The book is an eye opener for younger generation of Indians, who can learn about various innovations that have touched the lives of millions of people since 1947. And this journey continues as we celebrate Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav.

It has touched upon various kinds of innovation (not Jugaad) that has happened in our country since independence. Very well-researched and very well-written written.

"This is an excellent book on India's innovation journey, recounting numerous innovations in different sectors over the past 75 years, also highlights people behind them. A must read for all age groups"

I found the book quite unputdownable and very very informative. We certainly need more such accounts of the India story

Indian innovation ~not jugaad~ : 100 Innovations that transformed IndiaAuthor : Dinesh C. SharmaPublished by : Roli BooksThe author argues that , weIndians are great innovators , but the term “jugaad” seems to be thrown around ever too often regarding are greatest innovations. The term has attained some amount of respectability , thanks to Management gurus and Western experts. These people use “jugaad” to describe frugal and grassroots innovations in the Indian context. The author finds this foolish to compare innovation and jugaad. To quote the author “ (Jugaad) is a quick fix , a short term solution to overcome inefficiency in a system or product or shortcomings in infrastructure, and has harmful consequences for users. Jugaad connotes improvisation to fulfil certain immediate needs.” Jugaad’s depiction of cool, normalised-it mostly due to pop culture. The book covers the term ‘innovation’ in the broadest possible sense. From technology, business strategies to government policies, this book cove all.The book is divided into 10 different chapters, the first one describing ‘most’ of the major revolutions are country has gone through in terms of innovation, emphasis on “most” , but more on that later. The remaining 9 chapters are divided based on different categories , like the first category (after the innovations) is Food,Water and Sanitation, which covers the Swaraj tractor , Sulabh toilets ,mid-day meals etc (the Swacch Bharat mission could have been mentioned here , but was excluded) , the forth chapter being about Transport and mobility , which covers everything from the Delhi Metro to the Maruti 800 . Each innovation has been dealt with as a stand alone narrative and not necessarily be read after completing the previous one. Each innovation mentioned contains enough context, origin and core features of the innovation, as well as its dissemination, impact and the key people behind it. Most narratives are brief .Of the 100 odd innovations mentioned , all are given justice to, with the due credits to the innovators and proper citations after each chapter provided. There are many unsung heroes who get their due in the book.I am well aware that 100 is a very small number to cover all the brilliant innovations of our fellow countrymen, but their are some MAJOR ONES the author seems to have skipped , like in the innovations sections , the digital revolution should have been mentioned. And as mentioned before , the Swacch Bharat Mission and the IHHL (Individual Household Latrines) fail to get a mention. I would have forgiven non inclusion of these but when you also happen to have space “Chota Recharge” , how can one NOT MENTION JIO? In fact barely any innovation post 2014 seems to have been mentioned apart from UPI (which is brilliant and a life saving invention(perhaps literally)) , i do not know whether that is because of political reasons or perhaps the author wanted to avoid recency bias(which seems like a good enough reason).In the Generic Drugs section, the author mentions reverse engineering process for making cheaper medicines. Isn’t that too technically “jugaad” as per the author’s own definition mentioned previously?All in all , i would say an interesting though incomplete list of innovations. Perhaps 100 is too small a number. But i will not stop anyone from picking the book up , as I genuinely believe the author has done a good job and given justice to each innovation mentioned.