ISRO helping govt keeping prices of potatoes and onions in check: SAC director

“So if they know that the sugarcane production in UP and Maharashtra is going to be low, the government gets time to book sugar from Brazil. That is the reason why the prices of sugar have been between Rs 20-40 per kilogram during the last 10 years. The prices are lower than the inflation rates,” he added.

“We (ISRO) has given the country so many communication satellites. Through the television programmes aired through these satellites we make the country laugh and also make them cry; fights in family happen and they stop as well. We do not give importance to this, but only when we do something like a Mars mission then ISRO’s contribution is acknowledged,” Misra said while stressing on the innovations done by scientists at this institution.

The senior ISRO scientist said that Indians do not respect the fact that a lot of innovations happen in the country with frugal finance. He narrated how SAC was planning to buy a special kind of CNC machine from Germany, but got the same made through a local company in Rajkot. “If we had bought from Germany, it would have costed us Rs 12 crore, and we only paid Rs 1.5 crore to the local company. We ended up saving a lot of money,” Misra said about a decision that was made a couple of months back.

The chief guest of the event Dr C Muralikrishna Kumar from Niti Aayog said the NDA government under the Atal Innovation Mission will begin work on the establishing 500 tinkering labs in schools across the country in the next one month. “We will set up a challenge where schools will compete to set up these laboratories that will boost the spirit of innovation among school children.”

Meanwhile, the GIS awards that were given out during the event included Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA. She was given the Gujarat Ratna— A life for innovation award. Diamond baron, Savji Dholakia, Managing Director of Hari Krishna Exports Pvt. Ltd., and Mr. Jaysukh O. Patel received the “Hercules Award” for “conducting the highest and biggest loyalty program ever for employees” in Surat and for a “LED Motion Sensor Light for prevention of electricity wastage” in Ahmedabad, respectively.

The Achievers Award were bestowed upon Dr. Harish R Gershom for inventing “HARISOPHONE”, a musical instrument for augmenting the cure of human ailments through sound therapy in Ahmedabad , and Mr. Vijay Kothari who received it for conceptualizing the “Waste Out of Wealth” (WoW) Program meant for shredding secret records of companies and waste management and pollution prevention in Ahmedabad.

The trendsetter awards were given to Nikisha Bhadreshbhai Jariwala’s innovation that deals with an exquisite way “to transliterate Gujarati text into Braille, a crucial aid for the visually impaired” in Surat. Ahmedabad-based Vinit Naranbhai Patel was recognized for developing a resource recovery process for preventing pollution and reducing carbon footprints, while Saumil Anilkumar Parikh fetched the Trend Setter Award for a process to differentiate genuine medicines through specially designed Aluminum foil, Ahmedabad.