My aim was not to glorify engineering in India; very far from it, actually. The aim of the article was to provide a really shallow look into the history of engineering culture in India. There's a lot more that I really haven't even talked about - how politicians set-up engineering schools since that was a major way to pick-pocket the middle class, the (alleged) abundance of black money in many "premier" institutes of engineering, and in general, the way engineering in India is taught is plain wrong.
I graduated in 2010 from an "NIT", and I am fully aware of how bad the engineering system in India is.
Even when the article makes a minor allowance for less-than-stellar engineering performance -- why did it take longer than expected to develop nuclear power? -- the answer given is not anything to do with engineering, but only that Indians were too peaceful under Ghandi and simply didn't feel like going nuclear.
I'm a big fan of India and Indian innovation and potential. I would just have liked to read a more balanced article that didn't bother with the nationalistic stuff. Viva Indian engineering in the 21st century!
Some of the best coder/hacker types I've met in India were self-taught. I have never met/interviewed a truly outstanding candidate from any of the "top-line" schools ever. Sad, really. What was worse was the arrogance of some these so called grads.
Slight? I agree with most of what you were saying, I just felt most of those editorials were not only unnecessary, but distracting.
There are large number of problems with the engineering system in India (especially about the number of engineers and the quality of engineering education) and the author just sweeps them under the rug.
Poorly written.
Full disclosure: I am an Indian Engineer now studying in UC Berkeley. Almost a perfect fit to the model described (except that I didn't graduate from the IITs).