The Israelis in your life

There's a lot more of Israel in India and in Indians' daily life, common people and Prime Ministers included. The country's technological and agricultural innovations are a way of life in India.
The uzi submachine gun, named after its Israeli founder Uziel Gal, is a weapon of choice for close combat operations and were the weapon of choice, till recently, of the Special Protection group (SPG) that provides proximity security cover to the Indian Prime Minister.

The USB flash drive, also known as the pen drive, thumb drive and memory stick, was invented by an Isareli company, M-Systems in 1999. It was initially known as DiskOnKey and the first version had a storage space of just 8MB - today, one can get a flash drive of up to 1TB.

The epilator, or the electric hair remover, came into being in 1986, courtesy Yair Dar and Shimon Rahav. It was initially named Soft and Easy, with the name changed to Epilady. Of course, the earlier ones were quite painful but with improvements in technology, it's all gain, little pain.

The flat plate rooftop solar water heaters also came from the land of the Jews. While the concept was in use in the US, it was an Israeli, Levi Yissar, who invented the modern day solar water heater in the 1950s. Yissar's company, NerYah, became a leading producer of solar power water heaters.

Put into use in the 1960s, it was conceived by Simcha Blass in Israel and soon became the most important agricultural innovation of the 20th century. In India, 3.54 lakh hectares of land is currently covered by drip irrigation. India's Jain Irrigation Systems is now the world's second largest drip irrigation systems manufacturer - the largest one being Netafim, of Israel.

Those cute, round red tomatoes, better known as cherry tomatoes, also came from Israel and today adorn salad platters across India's homes and hotels. India went a step further by developing cherry tomatoes in pink, orange, yellow, grape green and rusty brown colours.

With 40 million Indians logged into Viber, for free messaging, voice and video calls, this is one Israeli company that can count Indians as die-hard fans. The company claims its largest user base is in India. It was acquired by Japan's Rakuten in 2014 for $900 million.