Subhas Das has four brothers and a sister. They were very poor in early days. To help his father with limited income from farming in running the seven-member family, Das and his elder brothers left their studies and worked in a hotel. He still lives in a joint family with his parents and brothers. Due to poverty, Subash Das?s father could not send his children to school. However, they did learn reading and writing on their own. At a very young age, Subash Das was forced to work in a hotel as a hotel boy. From childhood, he developed an attitude of working fast with extreme efficiency. When the owner of the hotel asked for some thing to be done, he would do it immediately yet, he never received any compliments either from the owner or from the customers. This disheartened him a lot.One of the hotel boys was a motorcycle mechanic. One day this boy repaired a motorcycle of a customer, and the customer was very happy and praised him a lot. This incident struck Das. He realized that people would give more respect and regard to those who could do different things. He thought this could happen only if one pays more emphasis on technical innovations. From that day onwards, he wished to become a mechanic.Amlan Bhattacharjee, the co innovator of Badminton Stroke Practicing Machine, is from Tezpur town of Sonitpur District of Assam. His family consists of two brothers, two sisters and his parents. He is the youngest of all.Amlan Bhattacharjee was a badminton player and had represented the state of Assam. He completed his graduation in science and joined National Institute of Sports (NIS) as a badminton coach.

 

The idea to developed Badminton Stroke Practicing Machine came to Amlan?s mind after a discussion with his NIS batch mate. They thought that automatic practicing machine is there for Cricket, for Table tennis but not for Badminton. Though the idea was there since 1999, he had no knowledge and means to build the machine.Finally, in 2001 he met Subash Das at Nagaon and asked whether he could develop a machine that will drop badminton shuttle-corks automatically so that a player could strike it with a racket without having to pick up the cork every time. Since Mr. Das always wanted to make new things, he took this assignment as a challenge and after a lot of trial and error he finally developed the present prototype.This machine drops shuttle-corks at regular intervals and also spins it a little because of the circular motion of the conveyor belt.

 

First he used elastic belt as a conveyor belt, but that didn?t work as it slipped away from the pulley. It was then replaced with a hard-belt and the problem got rectified. In the beginning, people doubted innovator?s ability and efficacy of the machine but later on, they appreciated his efforts. It is worth mentioning that Das had also developed a small car run by scooter engine. He sold the  portable and requiring no power for its operation, it is a better alternative than the bulkier electronic weighing machines costing a few thousand rupees.Local authorities and the Weights and Measurement department have tested the microbalance and have certified its accuracy. This microbalance has been included in the Limca Book of Records 2007 as the smallest silver balance.Raj Kumar wants to set up a business based on innovations so that these can be used in the service of lower and middle class people of our country. He has also conceived a design for a mechanical washing machine that he believes, will appeal to the non-affluent segments of our population. Raj Kumar?s ultimate dream is to see India in the league of developed nation