Madhur Malhotra, a 33-year-old engineer, returned to the country in 2009.
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Madhur Malhotra (right)[/caption]
Before that, he completed his Master's in IT and Communication Management in Australia and worked with a reputed company, as well as the health department of the government, there.
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Madhur was earning a handsome salary Down Under but was constantly concerned about his elderly parents living alone in Bhopal. Once, when his mother fell seriously ill and Madhur had to rush back to take care of her, he began to introspect seriously. “She had to have open heart surgery and that was when I decided to return to India for good. My mother is 72 and my father is 78 years old. My sisters are now married and my parents were living alone,” he says. After returning to India, Madhur joined his family’s construction business. But he found the work monotonous and unsatisfying.
The seed for Chai 34 was sown one evening when Madhur and his friend Shelly George were catching up over a cup at a tea stall in Bhopal.
“We saw the server dipping his hands into the glasses, the milk, etc., and his hands were dirty. And everyone around us was smoking. We, being non-smokers, were quite uncomfortable. Another thing we noticed was that there weren’t any girls around. So we started wondering if we could do something better than this,” says Madhur.The duo decided to set up a small tea cafe that would provide a nice ambience for tea lovers to get together with friends and family. They began by selling Irani chai, but this plan didn’t work well with the customers. As they started researching and improving, they hit upon the idea of serving tea in kulhads because the terracotta cups are eco-friendly and add a great aroma to tea.
Gradually, they also introduced different flavours and Chai 34 now serves 22 types of tea.
The co-founders put in all their savings to start this business. They began on a small scale and put in a lot of hard work. There were days, says Madhur, when the duo would themselves prepare tea because they had no staff to help them.
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Chai 34 also has a fast food menu but, three years on, tea remains its specialty. Madhur says the tea they serve is of high quality and they do not stinge on adding generous amounts of milk when serving the typical milky Indian chai. Smoking is, of course, strictly prohibited at the small cafe.
Chai 34 get about 50-100 customers a day during summer and this number increases to 200-400 in winter. There are regular customers who show up every day without fail and there are six staff members.
“After returning to Bhopal, I used to meet up with friends daily and think about different ideas to work on,” recalls Madhur. He did not want to do something that was run-of-the-mill. So why did he pick tea? “Because depending on how you serve tea to someone, you can enter the heart of the person. And that’s what matters,” he says with a smile.
You can find out more about Chai 34 here.
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(L-R) Abhineet Agarwal, Akash Saraf & Tushar Somani - Co-Founders of Pulpypapaya[/caption]
Kolhapuri Footwear Artisan[/caption]
Kolhapuri Footwear Line-up[/caption]
The Team of Being Eco (Image Source - KnowYourStar.com)[/caption]
Abhilash Salimath creating environmental awareness among school students (Image Source - KnowYourStar.com)[/caption]
Abhilash Salimath with the residents of an apartment (Image Source - KnowYourStar.com)[/caption]
Segregation of waste (Image Source - KnowYourStar.com)[/caption]
Trishla Surana with Colour Me Mad products[/caption]
However, going all out to enter the footwear industry wasn’t an easy prospect for her.
Colourful Comfees[/caption]
Credit: ReMaterials[/caption]
“I travelled through four states of India to understand the housing situation in slums and villages,” ReMaterials co-founder, Hasit Ganatra, said in a video about the company. “I quickly found that housing is a huge aspiration for these families and they have a tremendous emotional connect to it.”
ReMaterials is an Ahmedabad-based startup that has developed an affordable and ecologically friendly roofing solution called ModRoof. The panels are made of a new wood-like material that is made entirely out of waste materials like cardboard and agricultural waste, currently sourced locally in Ahmedabad.
“The manufacturing process is simple: it has a crushing stage, then a mixing stage, then a compression stage, drying stage and waterproofing stage," Hasit explained to Gizmag in an interview last year.
ReMaterials has designed the roof system in a way that makes it easy to transport, install and maintain. The roof panels can last over 20 years with minimal maintenance, according to the company. Not only is ModRoof durable, it is waterproof and fireproof and has heat insulating properties.
Speaking of the low-quality roofs currently in use in many parts of India, Lisa von Rabenau, the other co-founder and head of engineering at ReMaterials, said, “I was shocked by the severity of the problem. People actually die because of these roofs… in summer they transform into saunas and old people get heat strokes.” In their own tests, the company found that temperatures inside a house that has a metal roof can rise up to 42°C, while in the same conditions the interiors of a comparable house equipped with a ModRoof the temperature was 36°C.
But the aim of the ReMaterials team is not just to produce roofs that outperform other systems available in the market but to build a product that is appealing to prospective customers. “It looks really nice and families love the aesthetics of it,” Lisa said.
The company has also tied up with micro-finance institutions to offer attractive payment plans. Currently, the highest quality concrete slab roofs can be almost 10 times as expensive as low-quality metal or concrete corrugated roofs. The company has not listed the price of the ModRoof on its website but it is priced much lower than concrete slabs, according to Hasit.
Credit: ReMaterials[/caption]
Earlier this year US-based clean energy pioneer, Elon Musk, unveiled a roofing system that also acts as a solar panel. It was targeted towards environment-conscious wealthy customers in developed countries.
ReMaterials also plans to expand globally. “Apart from India poor quality roofing is a problem in several countries,” Hasit said, “Our goal is to provide high-quality shelter to all these families, wherever they are.”
Nungshiba dolls[/caption]
In 2011, Zuboni Humtsoe had just graduated from college. With her father seriously ill and her family undergoing a severe financial crisis, Humtsoe knew that she would have start earning immediately to be able to be contribute to her family's income. Sitting on the cold benches of the hospital, a determined Humtsoe promised herself that she would make her own destiny and not wait for anybody. While most of her relatives advised her to try for a government job, Humtsoe decided to follow her passion and set up a small business with the tiny capital of ₹ 3500 that she had saved from her college scholarship.
Passionate about art, fashion and photography, Humtsoe has always wanted to do something different. Taking inspiration from beautiful Japanese dolls, she decided to use left over fabrics to make beautiful handcrafted dolls that they would marketed under their brand, 'Precious Me Love' or PML. The idea behind this was to up-cycle fabrics and reduce carbon footprints while simultaneously empowering more local women in the process.
Over the years, Humtsoe worked really hard, taught herself, experimented, innovated, and kept herself open to feedback and criticism. She also surrounded herself with genuine and positive people who inspired her to push herself and never give up. With time, everything started falling into place.
Today, PML sells everything from vintage clothing and fashion accessories to a variety of tribal handcrafts. However, their signature products remains the traditional Nungshiba dolls. The dolls have been named Nungshiba (which means 'love' in Manipuri) in honour of PML's first crafts designer, Babita Meitei, a Manipuri.
Inspired by the beautiful tribal women of Nagaland, each Nungshiba doll is carefully designed and takes a day to make with two expert crafts women working together tirelessly. The end result is beautiful handmade dolls that wear unique mekhlas (traditional wrap-arounds worn by the Naga women of each tribe) with intricate pattern of beads and hand-stitched designs. Humtsoe says that they take special care to ensure that each each Nungshiba handcrafted doll is special, unique and a joy that will last forever.
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Nungshiba dolls[/caption]
Zuboni Humtsoe with PM Modi at the Hornbill Festival 2014[/caption]
Nungshiba dolls[/caption]
This healthcare and lifestyle brand, which promotes organic farming and Ayurveda, is excited about its new concept.
Seedball Ganesha[/caption]
Budhi Prakash, Founder, Air Himalayas[/caption]
Flagging off of the first Air Himalayas flight[/caption]
In the summer of 2014, the company started to operate chartered flights on the Chandigarh-Kullu route. “What takes seven hours by road, now just takes 40 minutes by air. And Kullu is just an hour’s distance from Manali. We run a small nine-seater flight and we charge around Rs. 6000 per person," says Budhi Prakash.
Budhi Prakash with his family on the Air Himalayas flight[/caption]
Three years into the business, Budhi Prakash says it has been no bed of roses. Air Himalayas suffered huge losses in 2014 and 2015. One of its founding partners quit and Budhi had to steer the ship all by himself. There were funding hiccups too, which restricted the operations to summer. But Budhi Prakash was in no mood to give up. His relentless hard work helped Air Himalayas break even this year. “The task ahead is tough, but I’ll continue to pursue my dream to bring more and more tourists to Manali,” says Budhi Prakash.
You can contact Budhi Prakash at 
Subhash Lode[/caption]
Of these, there were two main issues: logistical difficulties and the lack of knowledge.
Agrowbook assists farmers & the youth with technology[/caption]
Ganesh and Rajesh Matta have started the business of making amla candy[/caption]
Devi Murthy[/caption]
At present, the firm has several innovative products for small farms on the market, as well as plans to develop at least two products in the pipeline per year.
Kamal Kisan Vegetable Planter[/caption]
The planter allows for a single laborer to plant a one acre plot with vegetable seedlings within four hours, as opposed to a conventional planter that requires four laborers to achieve the same results. Furthermore, it is portable and easy to operate, manufactured with high-quality steel and equipped to adjust planting depth according to the seeds being worked with.
Kamal Kisan Mulch Layer[/caption]
The mulch layer has reduced labour requirements from six to just two laborers, while completing the laying of one acre of mulch film within three hours.
The device combines three processes – ridging, planting and furrowing – to increase efficiency and has reduced the time required to plant a one-acre area to just three hours. Moreover, it mimics current planting methods and easily be can be used with small tractors with powers as low as 30 HP.
Apart from these, the company is researching two new products and is soon to launch a mini rice mill.
RangSutra sells a range of handcrafted products to Fab India, which has been a partner and promoter of village handlooms work and traditional crafts and skills. Its export partner is IKEA, a Swedish multi-national group of companies known for their designs, particularly in furniture.
Radha Bai, one of the first shareholders of the company, is proud of how far the venture has come. Her share certificate is framed and prominently displayed on the wall of her home in a Bikaner village. “This is the only punji (financial asset) in my name,” she says. “The land as well the house on which it stands is in the name of my husband.” The framed share certificate announces her arrival in the market place and her acceptance into a competitive world of business. The value of Radha Bai’s share, which was Rs. 100 when she bought it, is now Rs. 600 and like other craftspeople of RangSutra by working four hours a day, she receives a monthly income of between Rs. 3,000 to Rs. 5,000 from it. If embroidery work can be combined with the tailoring of outfits, the artisan’s earnings go up to Rs. 12,000. Prior to the company’s intervention in the market and the efforts it made to re-hone and upgrade artisans’ skills, the artisans earned just between Rs. 500 to Rs. 1000 per month.
Now in its 10th year of business, in an effort to reaffirm its faith in its artisan shareholders, RangSutra has decided to take on the entire gamut of operations from designing and production to marketing. It plans to open its own shop in Delhi or Gurgaon with a new range of designs themed ‘Be the Change’.
The organisation is also extremely women-centric with a 70% membership of female artisans. Three of the six board members are women and three are artisans. Female empowerment is taken seriously at the firm and as shareholders, RangSutra’s women are expanding their skillset to management. They tend to be vocal about their opinions and do not hesitate to question their managers and even the managing director if there is a delay in the work assigned to them. They also understand the importance of quality in a seller’s market. The company builds on traditional craft skills like hand embroidery, applique, tie-dye, handloom weaving, engineered weaving, extra weft weaving, leather craft, silver jewellery and beads. The products are innovative, combining the creation of aesthetic beauty with strong ethical work practices.
The company’s business model entails working with group. After beginning with three clusters, it now works with 35 groups of artisans in UP, MP, Rajasthan, West Bengal, and Manipur. In Manipur, the organisation works in collaboration with the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and in Madhya Pradesh with women who have given up scavenging to become artisans.
Fifty women have become crafts managers and have greater responsibilities. Artisans are involved at all levels of the production chain from sourcing material and weaving and dyeing fabrics, to product development and quality control of the final product. Since 2011, RangSutra has also focused on workshops for the development, monitoring and quality control of new products. The workshops impart management and planning skills to those handling groups of artisans, like tracking orders and ensuring timely delivery, leading to a significant jump in orders. The cutting of kurtas and other apparel has been centralised in Bikaner. The stitching is also done in Bikaner and Mirzapur to ensure standardisation of quality. The embroidery embellishment happens in village centres and garments are dry cleaned to ensure they are spotless and that the fabric colours don’t run. Even the waste material collected from the stitching of kurtas and cushion covers are used to make patchwork bedspreads, bags and mobile phone covers.
It also engages older artisans in their sixties, but finds that it is easier to mould younger ones. Meharunnisa, in her mid-forties, is a shareholder and a tie-dye specialist from Bikaner. Her association with RangSutra began after two-and-a-half years of intense training. With her confidence level at an all-time high, she says “my work lets people know about me, my ability to supply in bulk and the finesse involved”. Meharunnisa earns Rs.12,000 a month and is confident of handling export orders that adhere to global standards.
Badii Bai, who specializes in embroidery, is the anchor of a women artisans group in a village in the Pugal division of Bikaner. Having worked with RangSutra since its inception, she says “Many women in my village are shareholders. We work together as a family with customers, suppliers and RangSutra to ensure better returns. We have a sense of ownership and pride and a feeling that this is more than just a job. We don’t have to go beyond our homes for work. Our clients come for hundreds of miles to look at our work and lives. We have a glorious past and look forward to a richer future.”
Jaan Mohammed is the solitary block printer in Bikaner city and revels in his status. He works from home, a home he built with three years’ worth of the earnings he saved after starting work with RangSutra. He has co-opted his wife to work with him so that the family has a better life.
Nirmala Devi receiving a certificate after training.[/caption]
Nirmala is a vyavasthaapak, or a manager. Before joining the RangSutra team she was a member of a women SHG (self-help group), Swami Vivekanands Shiksha Samiti. She was married at 19 and soon found that her in-laws did not want her to step out of the house to work, so she began to make kurtas and children’s clothes at home. On meeting the RangSutra team, she showed them samples of her work and was sent for a week-long training session at a stitching workshop in Jaunpur. She was even able to go on an ‘exposure visit’ to RangSutra’s base in Bikaner and came back inspired.
Nirmal Devi at a training session.[/caption]
Omprakash, in his late thirties, is associated with the Napasar handloom cluster as part of the RangSutra Craft Duniya Producer Company. He works with 250 weavers to keep alive the craft of lohi, a light-weight, hand-woven blanket. Each weaver produces eight to 10 meters per day, which is small in these days of mass production. Omprkash’s work showcases that craft heritage can be kept alive with artisans maintaining world-class standards.
Radha bai, Badli Bari and Nirmala Devi signify a new dawn for craftspeople on the margins. They are making their presence felt in society, their voices are beginning to matter at home and women like them are being emboldened to educate their daughters and become leaders in village forums.
Know more about RangSutra 
Dr. Uddhab Bharali with his innovations[/caption]
Uddhab Bharali in his workshop[/caption]
Uddhab Bharali experimenting with his pomegranate de-seeder[/caption]
Uddhab Bharali's pomegranate de-seeder[/caption]
Uddhab Bharali's areca nut peeler[/caption]
Bharali (extreme left) receives the National Grassroots Innovation Award in 2009 from former President Pratibha Patil[/caption]
Raksha Bharadia, author and founder of bonobology.com[/caption]
Her opinion is based on her work with the website, a forum for real-life stories of couple relationships, discussions and counselling. She has made efforts to retain her brand as a non-judgemental space, publishing articles and allowing comments that provide multiple perspectives on the functioning of romantic relationships.
Sunita Padwal, Founder of Cloud 9, Aurangabad[/caption]
“With the background I come from, it’s more socially acceptable to be seen as a good wife and mother. People assume that a good businesswoman does a sub-par job of raising her children, or that her home is a mess. I’ve never been ashamed of any of these roles.”
She’s a trained psychoanalytic psychotherapist, has dabbled in the cold ceramic work trade, designed clothes, ran her own homemade chocolate business and, a few years ago, launched a vegan tiffin service. But her initial forays into entrepreneurship were met with scepticism from within her own home. Back in 1990, after the birth of her first child, Mayavi spoke about starting her career.
“My mother-in-law told me that my father-in-law wouldn’t like it if I started to work,” she recalls. “I was very upset. I went straight to my husband and he told me to go ahead. I started from home.”
Mayavi admits to periods of depression, where she felt ‘useless’ and ‘bored’ with her homemaker routine and guilty that the onus of financially providing for the family had been placed entirely on her husband’s shoulders. “It was not just the money. I wanted the satisfaction that I was contributing. I looked at other women like me and couldn’t understand how they were happy.”
Merryn Mathew, Founder of Iha[/caption]
Her work involves sourcing saris, interacting with weavers across the country and handling orders both in-store and online, via Facebook. Even today, years after opening the store from her own home, Merryn is clear that her job as full-time mother-of-two takes precedence. The boundaries between work and family frequently overlap, and that’s the way she likes it. “In today's world, where the lines defining the roles of partners are blurred, I feel the term housewife is almost redundant," she says.
"I guess the partner that circumstantially takes on more home-based responsibilities can still be referred to as the ‘homemaker’ in the pair. If there are kids involved, the ‘homemaker’ also becomes ‘primary parent’. Personally, I am indifferent to taking on any title.”
Rituparna Das and Angeline Robinson of Silver Nut Tree[/caption]
Merryn encourages all who find ways to work from home. “I say it with pride that I solely play the role of motivator, grocery shopper, kitchen planner, educator, driver, nurse , party planner, holiday planner, weekend planner etc, etc, and still contribute as much as my partner towards paying the bills. The most amazing thing is that I do it all on my terms.”
Mayavi shares her enthusiasm, “To all housewives who are toying with the idea of starting their own venture, I say - ‘just do it!’”
Yogesh Shinde, Founder of Bamboo India[/caption]
Different products by Bamboo India[/caption]
After thorough research, and advice from Hemant Bedekar, a Pune-based septuagenarian who conducts research on bamboo, Yogesh came to the conclusion that making bamboo products could be the best entrepreneurial option for the farmers in the villages of Velhe, Bhor, Panshet, and Mulshi, all adjacent to Pune.
He then quit his job as the Assistant VP of Barclays Bank, gathered 10 farmers from the village of Velhe and set up a small manufacturing unit in his farm house. Initially, everything was trial and error. Yogesh himself learned how to make the products and taught the farmers personally. He then started selling these products to his friends, family members, and acquaintances.
Bamboo toothbrushes in the making[/caption]
At present, Yogesh has a lot of plans for the expansion of Bamboo India. He has 40 new products in the pipeline and plans to engage over 100 farmer families in the business by the end of 2017. Although the company has seen a profitable beginning, there’s still the major hurdle of cost effectiveness.
Amit Boni, Head, Motorola India, makes a point at the Hult Prize India National Finals at VClub Gurugram, Jan. 15.[/caption]
Each year, in August, President Clinton announces a problem statement on one of the pressing global issues, to challenge students to come up with disruptive solutions. Student teams from around the world work on it to develop unique ideas. The best ideas from each University compete at the National level. The selected teams compete at the Global level, culminating at an intensive accelerator at Boston, followed by the Grand Finals hosted by Clinton at New York. The winner gets a million dollar seed fund, visibility, branding, and investor attention to start-up their social enterprise. All participating teams earn valuable insight, knowledge, experience, and a positive world view.
The Hult Prize promotes social enterprise rather than charity, so that doing good is sustainable and scalable. The idea is to introduce, at a very young age, the thought of doing businesses in a way that they benefit the under-served and under-privileged sections of society with dignity.
It wasn’t an easy transition for Devika who has no background in design. Having trained as a CA, she worked at corporate houses like Ernst & Young and Deloitte before doing a 180 degree professional turn. “It was quite a leap for me. But Kanabis will be two years old soon and the response to the brand has been phenomenal.
Kanabis specialises in women’s footwear crafted from leather substitutes like canvas and jute. What truly sets the brand apart is its unwavering emphasis on design and quality, two aspects often overlooked by mass manufacturers that rely on these materials.
Needless to say, one of Devika’s biggest challenges have been logistical, starting from sourcing materials from vendors in and around Delhi NCR, assembling the designs, packaging, quality control, sales and marketing.
The Indian fashion industry reports an ever-increasing demand for cruelty-free products from customers. Yet there are few alternatives, especially in case of segments like footwear. Even when alternatives do exist, they are limited to high-end fashion goods that aren’t always affordable.
Greater sustainability is always on the entrepreneur's mind. “We still have to use a little plastic in manufacturing our shoes. I’d love to look for an alternative and make my shoes eco-friendly,” she says, in the midst of conceptualising a recycling initiative. “We want to start a way to recycle old shoes into new designs. We are in conversation with factories to supply discarded pairs, and would also like to encourage customers to bring their old shoes.”
In less than two years, Kanabis has expanded to eight multi-brand stores, and is also available online. Gearing up to expand all over the country via social media, exhibitions and more retail presence, Devika in on a mission to prove that it doesn’t take leather to put your best foot forward.
Check out Kanabis products on their 
The man behind these innovative farms is 31-year-old Arun Raj who runs Primus Design, a boutique industrial design studio comprising a 10-member strong team of designers, engineers and technicians. Working to develop products in electronics, consumer durables and FMCG domains, among others, it was his work that led him to develop the Altifarm concept.
As it’s often said, the devil is in the details. The metal frame is powder-coated to prevent rust, and the wicking cones can pass water without resorting to electricity. The trays are height-adjustable to account for the growing trees. Altifarm also addresses issues of space constraint, lack of natural light and oxygen, and even the grower’s lack of time.
“All the learning we had over the years as a design studio has been distilled into the Altifarm,” says Arun. “It has helped us meet amazing people and take some huge risks.”
The product was launched through a crowdfunding platform, which has helped the team with feedback and outreach. “Rather than the conventional approach of sales and marketing, crowdfunding provides a direct one to one interaction with potential customers and early adopters,” says Arun. “We have covered 30% of our goal in the first week and the response from around the world on social media has been phenomenal.”
Available in four colours, Altifarm is available at an early bird pricing of $199, followed by $219 for a 4-tier model. The unit arrives in a compact box and can be assembled in minutes—customers source their own seeds and soil. The brand is now focused on developing the project with more variants and expansion packs.
Image source: 
Image source: 
Smt. Pabiben Rabari[/caption]
Pabiben joined a Rabari women’s group in 1998, and soon became famous as the master artisan of the group. She found a solution to create decorative embroidery without breaking the community’s rules. She invented a new art form—machine application of ready-made elements, which was named “Hari Jari”.
For the first time in the Dhebaria community, Pabiben used the vibrant combination of trims and ribbons, which was famously known as “Pabi Jari”. She mastered this art with enthusiasm, and made a sample shopping bag. It became an instant hit, and was christened the “Pabi Bag”! The Pabi Bag has now been introduced to the contemporary market. Currently her products include different kinds of purses and bags, toilet kits, durries, files, quilts, cushion covers, etc.
