National Hero and International Zero

Recently, India Today ranked us as the best engineering college of the country. Here is the link to the news story.

In the last paragraph, India Today has quoted Prof. Sanjay Dhande, Director. He apparently said:

"Indian society looks at IITs as elite undergraduate institutions. This is unfortunate. IITs should have created an impact in research, postgraduate education, development of technologies for the benefit of society and providing effective academic and intellectual leadership to the society at large. This has not been the case. Society should demand more from IITs instead of merely glorifying them as elite undergraduate colleges. Being national heroes and international zeros is not going to work for long." (emphasis is mine)

I am sure that there is some miscommunication and Prof. Dhande has been quoted out of context. We are not comparable to the best in the world, but calling us "Zeros" is not a fair evaluation either.