Well, you cite perfect examples of the parental and societal pressures that tend to work against founding a startup. But there is tremendous "underground" cultu

Well, you cite perfect examples of the parental and societal pressures that tend to work against founding a startup. But there is tremendous "underground" culture of startups in India. Case in point, have a look at http://pluggd.in/ http://pluggd.in/ or the startup event of India http://proto.in/ http://proto.in/ Agreed that Indian startups are still light years away from achieving the same _sophistication_ as the Silicon Valley's, but increasingly I am seeing more and more people jumping into getting their hands dirty. And given enough startups, purely from a statistical point of view, a few great startups will eventually emerge from India. Unfortunately, I will have to agree with you that the state of R&D is poor, but it is just evolution. We started late and now have lots to catch up!