"If you have any new ideas or you have any new inventions, I'm here to promote you," he tells farmers squatting beside a dusty roadside shrine to the Hindu god Shiva.
For more than two decades, Gupta has scoured rural India for its hidden innovations, motivated by the belief that the most powerful ideas for fighting poverty and hardship won't come from corporate research labs, but from ordinary people struggling to survive.
Gupta and his aides have uncovered more than 25,000 inventions, from the bicycle-mounted crop sprayer to the electric paintbrush that never needs to be dipped in a paint can.
Text and Images: AP
Image: In this Thursday, May 24, 2012 photo, Prof. Anil Gupta listens to villagers during his visit for his Shodh Yatra (Journey for the Search of Knowledge) in the village of Nayapura in the Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh.