Interesting CGTN report on the attack:
Not all engineers are scams, some of which are absolutely brilliant, one of which was a mentor of mine from Mumbai (but he actually grew up in Kuwait). A couple of SMEs in my group are Indian, and they know everything in their field.
When a country gets that big, there will be divisions. India just seems to amplify it with the caste system.
Agree, and there are exceptions. Exceptions don't prove the rule.
A good measure is the ultimate result.
Let's do a comparison:
Around 1900 Russia had a corrupt feudal aristocracy that preferred to speak in French and get education abroad in that language while the rest of the peasant population in the nation was denied education even to achieve basic literacy. Most educational institutions even if available were run by the church which was only interested in teaching persons ( male only) to become priests. Russia had around 10-20 % literacy and starvation level existence for 90% of its population. In 1905 Russia was soundly defeated by Japan in a naval and land campaign during which the Russian navy was decimated.
After the Civil War ended around 1921-22, the Soviet Union embarked on a series of language and educational reforms unshackling the school system from the Church. With adult literacy came technically training and there are pictures today of classes being held on the shop floor of factories educating peasants and workers on the technology of manufacturing. During World War 2 there is stirring footage from that era of Russian women manning cranes, and operating lathes and milling machines filling in for the male population fighting on the front for the life of their nation. China went through EXACTLY the same reforms. A Chinese education official will send his/her children to the same school under his/her administration.
India has never had a social revolution.
A Indian education officer will send his son to an exotic Catholic run mission school in Darjeeling while the government run school under his administration serves the poor and disadvantaged Dalit population with appalling unsanitary conditions and teachers with fake degrees. The education official can afford to send his son to that exotic school because he has swindled money from the government school accounts.
Likewise a survey of most Indian cities in an area next to University campuses show a proliferation of "Coaching Centers". The University professors neglect their government paid classes but moonlight in the coaching centers extracting money from those who can afford to pay. They make money from sub-standard text books that they write ( basically copies of Western text books) which they manipulate into "university recommended " text books forcing students to buy these so that they can pocket the royalties.
The names of the affiliated colleges tell which caste runs the college. Colleges are named after caste leaders, deities, and political outfits.
"DAV College " pretty much tells who is running it and which students study there.
From such a rotten system a few exceptions ( from a population of 1.3 billion) do make it to Silicon Valley and impress their colleagues. Meanwhile India cannot develop a universal payment app such as PayTM ( origins of which need no introduction).
India will never be another China or Russia. A Russian engineer will sit and eat with his mechanic and when traveling in China, my driver and I would enter a restaurant and eat together.
Unusual? For India .., YES.
