Our seminar speaker yesterday was A.P. Balachandran, a distinguished theorist from Syracuse University. During lunch I asked him what the effective population of India was for producing technical and scientific talent. That is, what fraction of the population has access to educational opportunites equivalent to those in advanced countries. I asked whether the number might be 300 million, but he replied it might be closer to 100 million. If so, we can look forward to a rapid increase in the number of Indian scientists and engineers in the next generation, as their economy continues to develop. It's scary to think that we currently only feel the effect of 10% of their population! The literacy rate in India is only about 60% at the moment.
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