India, May 3 -- While companies in India are putting their energies and money into electric bikes, rickshaws, cars and buses, a startup in Pune is being audacious. They have developed an initial version of a jet engine that will soon help UAVs, drones, seaplanes and eventually large aircraft fly on electric power. A week ago, they tested the capability of their proprietary electric propulsion system (for jet engines) in Pune. This engine is at Technology Readiness Level 6 (TRL-6) under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) framework.

Says Abhijeet Inamdar, co-founder of SiriNor, "The engine prototype ran successfully in the test rig and even surpassed our design intent of 40,000 RPM and 10kgf thrust." In simple words...