throwaway_tvs

You might be right to the first order about language, but having a 'colonial' system is very insidious IMO.

First it means that a large fraction of the population is implicitly denied resources to develop their abilities. Second it means that people who do make it through the system (as it is) have no real incentives to stay back, neither cultural, nor fiscal, nor institutional.

Personally, none of the people I studied with/worked under ended staying in India. It's interesting that British India managed to sustain better state universities, than today.

I really admire Israel on the intellectual front. This is a nation that starts using an obscure liturgical language (Hebrew) at the turn of the 19th century, and today has Silicon Wadi which is second only to SV, the highest proportion of PhDs in the population, and a couple Nobels, Fields, Turing and Wolf prizes! I wonder if there are some aspects of Jewish culture than can be incorporated the world over.

India on the other hand ... It's interesting how the homeland of the Semitic and Dharmic religions have fared (both historically and contemporarily).

That said, I have great respect for some of the Professors who move back to India; working at salaries lower than their RA stipends.