: Sunday, April 4, 2021, 7:00 AM IST The Ventilator Project book review: A riveting story of the invention of world-class ventilator during Covid lockdown On March 16, 2020, when the country recorded 60 cases of Covid-19, Prime Minister Modi announced a Covid-19 Solution Challenge. Professor Bandyopadhyay of IIT-Kanpur, headed by its dynamic Director, Abhay Karandikar, responded by sending out the challenge to all IIT-Kanpur-incubated start-ups Indian science and technology institutions are commonly perceived as ivory towers being pampered at taxpayersâ cost. But the Covid-19 pandemic proved critics wrong, with the scientific community rising to the occasion and, almost overnight, developing indigenous diagnostic kits, PPEs, nano-fibre-based masks, naso-pharyngeal swabs, sanitizers and ventilators of a global standard, and having these manufactured, largely, by start-ups or small companies, without compromising on the quality.