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ankeshk

One of the few Indian innovations that has received international press is the cheapest car in the world: Tata Nano.

Other innovations from India:

Generating electricity from rice husk: http://www.huskpowersystems.com/

Vertical axis windmill: http://tepp-innovators.blogspot.com/2008/01/wind-turbines-on...

Microsoft, IBM, Cisco all have huge R&D labs in India. And the number of patents coming from them is not insignificant.

Of course, the number of innovations per capita coming out of India is a lot lower vs those coming out of USA or Israel or someone. But India is not a laggard in innovation.

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While I agree with your summation, that India is contributing innovation, I would be wary about using this one as an example:

One of the few Indian innovations that has received international press is the cheapest car in the world

This is more a product of cheap labor, cheap facilities and cheap materials than any truly innovative accomplishments.

Thanks. Although from what I remember, Tata Motors has 34 patents for the Nano car.

Nano is designed in a way that it uses less steel than other cars - making it lighter and cheaper.

Also, the wheel placement is done in a way that allows the car to be very small - yet the seating space be a lot more than other compact cars like Hyundai's Santro etc.

And also - Tata Nano innovated on the assembly line model. The car is designed in a way that the car parts can be built separately and assembled in various locations. Thus, smaller plants are needed. (Sure, computers are built the same way too. But cars are not built that way by other companies. Tata replicated the computer manufacturing model and made cars available in "assembly kits.")

I agree with you that the cheap labour helped in keeping costs down. But that was not the only thing. There is some really good innovation behind the car too.

Microsoft, IBM, Cisco all have huge R&D labs in India. And the number of patents coming from them is not insignificant.

Of course, this presumes that patents == innovation, something that is clearly not the case, as demonstrated by the activities of patent trolls.

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