Nokia launched the 1100 phone in 2003, in India first. Its keypad and front face were designed to be as dustproof as possible. Its sides are non-slip for humid weather, and it has a built-in flashlight.
The Indian ads listed the features: “Dust resistant. Torchlight and Anti-slip grip.” Nokia India’s Sharma said of the research: “One of the things we found out was that the torch is of high value.” More than 250 million were sold.
Rahul Sharma, a co-founder of Micromax, once saw a public call office running on a truck battery because of frequent power cuts. Micromax then made its first phone, the X1i, launched in 2008, with a standby time of a month.
“The phone had a standby time of 30 days and it was ideal for rural market since these areas have no or negligible power,” the trade magazine Voice&Data wrote.
In 1977 Kochouseph Chittilappilly founded V-Guard as a small unit making voltage stabilizers. He started with a capital of ₹100,000 and two employees.
Today LG sells refrigerators in India as stabilizer free. The product page reads: “Operates safely without an external stabilizer, ensuring reliable cooling even during high and low voltage fluctuations.”
In 1978-79 Sintex introduced “moulded Polyethylene water storage tanks for the first time in India.”
“The city supplies water once or twice a day, and homeowners store that water in an overhead tank,” an Indian journalist wrote from New Delhi for American public radio in 2014.
In November 2009 Business Standard reported that Godrej would launch the ChotuKool, a small refrigerator for 3,250 rupees. It that it “can run on battery” and “uses high-end insulation to stay cool for hours without power.”
Mansukhbhai Prajapati, a “humble potter from Wankaner” in Gujarat, built “India’s first terracotta refrigerator that works without electricity,” Business Standard wrote in 2011. He called it Mitticool.
The National Innovation Foundation describes it: “It does not require any electricity or any artificial energy and therefore no recurring cost.”
The Jaipur Foot was designed in 1968 by the craftsman Ram Chandra Sharma and the surgeon P.K. Sethi. “Existing prosthetic feet did not allow users to go barefoot, squat or sit crosslegged, or work in muddy fields, all of which were common in poorer areas of India,” Wikipedia notes.
A block of flexible rubber at the ankle lets the wearer squat. “The materials used at the foot-end are waterproof and somewhat mimic a real foot.”
Bajaj Auto made the Chetak scooter from 1972 until December 2005. Outlook recalled that it “could withstand harsh terrain, harsher climate and heavy usage with minimal maintenance.”