印度是世界上最被高估的国家吗？ [美国媒体]

Is India the most overrated country in the world?

印度是世界上最被高估的国家吗？


Shashank Goyal，Indian by birth
This is easy to test.
Listed below are 10 statements about India. One can go through the list and confirm how many they think are true -
One fifth of the Indians live below the National Poverty Line and the world’s third largest slum is in India
Some rural areas in India face severe problem of female feticide and to counter the issue, gender determination tests are legally banned in India
A big part of the population does not have access to proper sanitation facilities and open defecation is common in parts of rural India
India manufactures more cars than South Korea. India ranks 5th in Automobile manufacturing, 3rd in Steel production and 2nd in Cement production. Total Manufacturing Output from India is world’s 6th largest – ahead of Europe’s powerful economies France, Italy and UK
India was one of the only three countries that indigenously developedSupercomputers after USA and Japan. All other countries with Supercomputing power joined the race later
The world’s largest solar power plant has been built by India in its state of Tamilnadu. At full capacity, it can power about 150,000 homes
One of the most popular Core Banking Software Platforms that is used by large global Banks across 84 countries that serve over 450 million customers is built by an Indian Company (Infosys)
India has an advanced space program that has already launched successful orbiter missions to Moon and to Mars. Evidence of water’s presence on Moon was provided by India. By 2019 - 2020, India is planning a mission to Sun which will travel 1.5 million km from earth to study the Solar Corona
There are more Billionaires in India than in UK. World’s 4th largest number of dollar Billionaires and 8th largest number of dollar Millionaires are in India
India is using the power of education, science and industrializationto eradicate poverty at a massive scale. In less than 2 decades, India has uplifted close to 150 million people out from poverty. This is equivalent to reforming the lives of -
almost half the US population
more than twice the population of UK
more than the combined population of France + Germany
Most people would easily believe the first three but far fewer might be aware that the next seven are true as well. So, to the question “how many of the above you think are true” - Every time someone answers anything other than “All of the above”, they prove that India is actually underrated.

这事很容易考查。
以下是关于印度的10份声明，我们可以通过这份清单来确认大家（非印度人）认为的有多少是对的-
五分之一的印度人生活在国家贫困线以下，世界第三大贫民窟也在印度。
印度的一些农村地区面临严重的女婴流产问题，为了解决这一问题，印度法律禁止进行性别鉴定测试。
很大一部分人口没有适当的卫生设施可以使用，印度农村地区，露天排便现象很普遍。
印度制造的汽车比韩国多，汽车制造业排名第五，钢铁生产排名第三，水泥生产排名第二。印度的制造业总产值是世界第六，超过了欧洲发达经济体法国、意大利和英国。

印度是世界上第三个能本土研发超级计算机的国家，[tr]仅于美国和日本之后。其他拥有超算的国家后来（印度之后）都加入了这场竞赛。
世界上最大的太阳能发电厂是由印度泰米尔纳德邦建造的。在满负荷的情况下，它可以为大约15万户家庭供电。
最受欢迎的核心银行软件平台之一是由印度一家公司(印孚瑟斯)开发的，该平台由84个国家的大型跨国银行使用，为四亿五千万客户提供服务。
印度有一个先进的太空计划，已经成功发射了火箭到月球和火星。水在月球上存在的证据也是印度提供的。2019到2020，印度计划向太阳进发，将在离地球150万公里的轨道上研究日冕。
印度的亿万富翁比英国还要多。世界第四的亿万富翁和第八的百万富翁都在印度。
印度正在利用教育、科学和工业化大规模消除贫困。在不到20年的时间里，印度已经使接近一亿五千万人摆脱贫困。这相当于-

几乎一半的美国人口
英国人口的两倍多
超过英国和德国人口的总和
大多数人很容易相信前三个，但少有人意识到接下来的七个也是对的。所以，这个问题可以转化为“以上声明有多少你认为是真实的？”，每次有人的答案不是“以上所有”时，他们的存在即证明了印度确实是被低估的。

Rahul Shrivastava，Ambassador of India to Venezuela.
There was recently a world-wide competition to find out the most overrated country in the world. The judges had almost decided that no other country but India deserved this distinction. However, just before the announcement was to be made, someone brought to the notice of the judges just a few of the achievements of ancient India, which are given below:
The decimal place-value and a symbol for zero which developed in India in the 1st Century AD became the precursor of the Arabic numeral system. The practice of using a decimal mark is derived from the decimal system used in Indian mathematics.
Rulers for measuring were first used during the Indus Valley Civilisation (2600 - 1600 BC). These rulers were made from ivory, divided into units corresponding to 1.32 inches (33.5 mm) and were marked out in decimal subdivisions with accuracy to within 0.005 of an inch.
Weighing scales were first used during the Indus Valley Civilisation, which is also when banking was first performed.
Fields were first ploughed during the Indus Valley Civilisation.

最近有一场全球范围内的竞赛，以找出世界上最被高估的国家。法官们几乎判定，除了印度以外，没有任何国家能得此殊荣。然而，就在宣判之前，有人提请法官注意古代印度的一些成就，具体如下：
公园一世纪在印度发展起来的小数位和零符号是阿拉伯数字系统的前身，小数点的使用是从印度数学中的十进制系统推导出来的。
在印度河流域文明时期(公元前2600至1600)，人类首次使用了测量尺。这些尺子是用象牙制成的，分成1.32英寸(33.5毫米)的单位，用十进制细分，精确到0.005英寸以内。
在印度河流域文明时期，称重秤和银行首次出现在历史舞台。
在印度河流域文明时期，人类第一次开垦了农田。



(An artist’s impression of life in the Indus Valley Civilisation. Photo source: BBC)
Jute plants were first cultivated in India. So was Cotton.
Flush toilets using water were first used during the Indus Valley Civilisation around 3rd millenium BC.
Puppetry was also used first by the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Cashmere wool or Pashmina fiber originated from Kashmir where the fiber was first used to make shawls in the 3rd Century BC.
Indigo dye went from India to the Greeks and the Romans and thereon to other parts of the world.
Ornamental buttons were invented in India around 2000 BC.
Steel using the crucible technique, a method of producing high quality steel, was first produced in India around 300 BC. Around 500 BC, Wootz steel was produced by the Chera dynasty. It was exported to the Romans, Egyptians, Chinese and Arabs and was popularly known as Seric Iron.
Iron works were developed in India around 1800 BC. In the time of Chandragupta II (375–413 AD), corrosion-resistant iron was used to erect the Iron pillar of Delhi, which has withstood corrosion for over 1,600 years.

(一位画家对印度河流域文明生活的印象。图片来源：BBC)
黄麻植物最早是在印度种植的，棉花也是。
抽水马桶最初是在公元前三千年左右的印度河流域文明时期被使用的。
木偶戏也首先被印度河流域文明人民使用。
羊绒羊毛或羊绒纤维起源于克什米尔，公元前第三世纪，这种纤维首次被用来制作披肩。
靛蓝染料从印度传到希腊和罗马，再到世界其他地方。
装饰钮扣发明于公元前2000年左右的印度。。
坩埚技术生产优质钢的方法，是印度公元前300年发明的。公元前500年，乌兹钢由切拉王朝生产，并被出口到罗马、埃及、中国和阿拉伯，后被俗称为中国铁。
炼铁厂是在公元前1800年的印度发展起来的。在Chandragupta二世(公元375至413)，耐腐蚀铁被用来建造德里的铁柱，它已经经受了1600多年的风吹雨打。



(Iron pillar in Mehrauli. Photo source - Wikipedia)
Diamonds were first recognized and mined in central India at least 5000 years ago.
Zinc was first smelted from zinc ore in India.
Prefabricated homes and movable structures were invented in India in the 16th-century AD.
Metal seamless globe was invented in Kashmir in the 16th Century AD. Before they were rediscovered in the 1980s, it was believed by modern metallurgists to be technically impossible to produce metal globes without any seams, even with modern technology.
The first iron-cased and metal-cylinder rockets were developed by Tipu Sultan, ruler of the South Indian Kingdom of Mysore, and his father Hyder Ali, in the 1780s. After Tipu's eventual defeat and the capture of the Mysore iron rockets, they were influential in British rocket development, inspiring the Congreve rocket, and were soon put into use in the Napoleonic Wars.

(Mehrauli的铁柱。图片来源-维基百科)
5000年前，钻石在印度中部首次被发现和开采。
锌元素首先是从印度的锌矿中冶炼出来的。
公元十六世纪，印度发明了预制房屋和可移动建筑。
金属无缝球是公元十六世纪在克什米尔发明的。在它被重新发现（20世纪80年代）之前，冶金学家都认为，即使用现代技术也不可能在没有任何接缝的情况下制造金属球体。
第一枚铁壳和金属圆筒火箭是由南印度迈尔索王国统治者帝普和他的父亲海德在1780年代研制的。帝普最终战败，迈尔索铁火箭被夺取，这些火箭在英国火箭的发展中产生了一定影响，推动了康格里夫火箭的产生，并很快在拿破仑战争中投入使用。



(A soldier of Tipu Sultan’s army using the metal cylinder rocket as his flag staff. Photo source: Wikipedia)
The word shampoo in English is derived from the Hindi word ‘Champi’ which itself derived is from the Sanskrit root ‘Chapayati’, which means to press or knead. A variety of herbs and their extracts were used as shampoos since ancient times in India. Washing of hair and body massage (champu) was an indulgence of early colonial traders in India. When they returned to Europe, they introduced the hair treatment method they called shampoo.
The precursor of chess originated in India during the Gupta dynasty in the 3rd Century AD. The words for ‘chess’ in Old Persian and Arabic are chatrang and shatranj respectively — terms derived from Chaturanga in Sanskrit, which means an army of four divisions.
The game of kabaddi originated in India around 1500 BC.
Ludo or Pachisi was invented in India in the 6th Century AD and so was the game of Snakes & Ladders.
Yoga originated in India.

(Tipu Sultan军队的一名士兵，用金属筒火箭作为他的旗帜。图片来源：维基百科）
在英语中，香波（洗发水）这个词来自印地语单词‘Champi’，它本身来自梵语词根‘Chapayati’，意思是按压或揉捏。印度自古以来就使用各种草药及其提取物作为洗发水。洗头和按摩是早期在印度的殖民国商人的嗜好，当他们回到欧洲时，他们带去了一种被称为洗发水的头发处理用品。
国际象棋的前身起源于公元三世纪古普塔王朝的印度。古波斯语和阿拉伯语中的“国际象棋”一词分别是Chatrang和shatranj--这两个词源自梵语中的Chaturanga，意思是四个师的军队。
卡巴迪游戏起源于公元前1500左右的印度。
鲁多和印度双骰是在印度公元第六世纪时期发明的，蛇爬梯子也是。
瑜伽起源于印度。



Indian surgeon Susruta performed cataract surgery as early as 6th century BC. He was also the first to do rhinoplasty surgery.
Ayurveda and Siddha systems of medicine originated in India in the first-millennium BC. They are the oldest systems of medicine, which are practiced even today.
Sugar was invented in India during the Gupta dynasty in the 4th Century AD. The crystallization process was taken by Buddhist monks to China. And then the whole world learnt the technique.
The Indian mathematician Brahmagupta presented the first instance of finite difference interpolation in 7th Century AD. He also first used algebraic abbreviations.
The trigonometric functions sine and versine originated in Indian astronomy. They were developed in the Siddhantas, astronomical treatises of the 3rd or 4th centuries AD. Later, the 6th Century astronomer Varahamihira discovered a few basic trigonometric formulas and identities, such as sin^2(x) + cos^2(x) = 1.
Aryabhata first identified the force to explain why objects do not fall when the earth rotates. Brahmagupta described gravity as an attractive force and used the term ‘gruhtvaakarshan’ for gravity. Aryabhata developed a geocentric solar system of gravitation, and an eccentric elliptical model of the planets, where the planets spin on their axes and follow elliptical orbits,the Sun and the moon revolving around the earth in epicycles.
The Hindu cosmological time cycles explained in the Surya Siddhanta (around 600 AD) give the average length of the sidereal year (the length of the Earth's revolution around the Sun) as 365.2563627 days, which is only a negligible 1.4 seconds longer than the modern value of 365.256363004 days. This was the most accurate estimate for the length of the sidereal year anywhere in the world for over a thousand years.
Way back in the 6th century AD, Indian astronomers showed that comets were celestial bodies that re-appeared periodically. In the 10th century AD, astronomer Bhattotpala listed the names and estimated periods of certain comets.

The person who brought the above to the notice of the judges wanted to present before them some of India’s recent achievements and the forecast for future. However, the judges said that they were convinced that India was a misfit at a competition to determine the most overrated countries in the world. They said that the only mistake India made was not inventing patenting system and intellectual property rights 5000 years ago.

The judges said that they were in a hurry to leave for the next competition called ‘Most Ignorant Person of the Century.’ However, they thanked the person for making their job easier in selecting the winner of their next competition, which they said they would definitely present to the person who posed the question ‘Is India the most overrated country in the world?’

早在公元前六世纪，印度外科医生苏斯鲁塔就进行了白内障手术。他也是第一个做隆鼻手术的人。
阿育吠陀和西达的医学体系起源于公元前一千年的印度.。它们是最古老的医学系统，直到现在也还在使用中。
糖是在四世纪时期的印度古普塔王朝发明的。糖的结晶过程由佛教僧侣带到了中国，然后全世界都学会了这一技术。
印度数学家布拉马古塔在公元七世纪首次提出了有限差分插值的例子。他还首次使用代数缩写。
三角函数中的正弦和正矢起源于印度天文学，陈述于《Siddhantas》-三世纪或四世纪的天文学着作。再后来，六世纪的天文学家伐罗诃密希罗发现了一些三角函数的共性和基本公式，如sin^ 2（x）+ cos^ 2（x）= 1 。
Aryabhata首先确定了力来解释为什么地球自转时物体不会坠落。婆罗门把重力描述为一种吸引力，并用“GRUhtvaakarshan”一词来表示重力。Aryabhata开创了太阳引力的地心学说和一个行星偏心椭圆模型，行星旋转在其轴上，并循着椭圆轨迹，即太阳和月亮围绕着地球周转。
SuryaSiddhanta(大约公元600年)关于印度宇宙时间周期的论述中，提到恒星年的平均时间(地球绕太阳的公转时间)为365.2563627天，比现代测量的365.256363004天只多了1.4秒，它作为世上最为精确的恒星年时间已有一千多年。
早在公元六世纪，印度天文学家就发现彗星是周期性出现的天体。在公元十世纪，天文学家巴托斯帕拉列出了部分彗星的名称和周期。

提请法官注意上述情况的人接下来准备向他们介绍印度最近取得的一些成就和对未来的预测。然而，法官们说，他们认为印度在这场“世界最被高估者”大赛中表现不佳，印度犯的唯一错误就是5000年前没有发明专利制度和知识产权制度。
法官们还说，他们急着要去参加下一届名为“世纪最无知者”的比赛，他们要感谢这届比赛让他们轻易地选出了下一届的优胜者，被提名者就将是这位提出“印度是世界上最被高估的国家吗？”的仁兄。