Regarding, "Surprisingly, the topmost Indian university is not one of the IITs", IISc is 111 years old and the first IIT was started by an IISc Director.
IISc had a high standing as a research institution even long ago when C V Raman was its director. At that time there were no IITs. Raman is so far the only scientist who worked in India and got a Nobel prize.
