Thread by @Indumakalktchi

I recently had a heated argument with a young journalist who was of the opinion that till Nehru built IITs, India was technologically so backward that we didn't have the capability to even produce a needle!!

The uploaded image is a brochure of "India's first electronic analog computer" indigenously developed by Indian Engineers, led by the Mathematician-Scientist Samarendra Kumar Mitra at Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata [ISI Calcutta] in 1953.

[This was much before the first IIT was established].

It was a remarkable achievement those days because scientists in USA were of the impression that computers were meant only for large organizations which could afford millions of dollars.

But our Indian engineers broke the myth and designed such a compact computer which could be afforded even by schools & colleges.

It had such a major impact on the global computing community that even today, the Computer Museum at California [USA] has a dedicated stall and plaque

in memory of Samarendra K Mitra for his immense contribution to the emerging technology.

One of the reasons young Indians today are not proud of our history, is because our school textbooks never bothered to teach us these insights.

Most of the time, we were taught about achievements of scientists from other nations like US, UK, Russia, Japan etc, but never about our own scientists & engineers.

That's one of the reasons why youngsters like my journalist friend was under the impression that India was always technologically backward. Imagine, if a fact like this [India's first electronic computer] was taught in our schools,

what a positive impact it would have had on young minds into being proud of our own history.

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