This morning I read a story that thrilled me, about Professor Alka Zadgaonkar and her husband Umesh Zadgaonkar, who are producing fuel from waste plastics without generating noxious gases.

I’ve always felt that the success of the software industry and the call centers and back-office operators present a less-than-accurate picture of where India’s strengths and hopes lie. As a people, we have deeper and more robust strengths.

Professor Zadgaonkar’s story reminded me of where I really see India’s potential.

As professor of applied chemistry at Nagpur’s GH Raisoni College of Engineering, she’s developed special catalysts that allows plastic waste to revert back to its original petroleum properties so it can be used as fuel.

With her husband Umesh backing her, they’ve been struggling with the Indian establishment for years to find finance to take their project to viable production levels. Its shameful how hard and long they had to fight to make it happen. I have faced this myself and have it seen so often that I often get the impression that the single greatest impediment to India’s progress is our bureaucracy.

But they clearly have the entrepreneurial grit to see it through and they’ve made it happen.

I sure hope the whole world sees the opportunity here and works with her to replicate what she’s done at their industry in Nagpur in every part of the world. This planet desperately needs this to happen.

Read about her and their achievements, here and here.

I’m going to contact these wonderful people and see if my partner Sanjiv and I can fly to Nagpur to go see them. Maybe we’ll manage to find a business opportunity, maybe we wont. But it will be a thrill to meet someone whose gutsy thinking and work can contribute to making this a much nicer planet to live on.

Thank you, Alka and Umesh, for starting my day so well. You make me proud to be an Indian.

Stumble it!