Education in India

The nineteenth century has witnessed the birth of many branches of engineering and technology in addition to the classical ones of civil and mechanical.

The range of development in engineering and technology is illustrated by the following lists of separate engineering fields which are recognised and in which four or five years of under-graduate courses leading to a degree are offered in American universities and colleges. Within each one of the fields, there are further sub- divisions and specialisations, each being the subject of special postgraduate study and research.

Technology and engineering are products of fundamental discoveries in basic sciences, and as is well known, these began to accumulate in the late nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries and in greater variety than in all the previous 50 centuries of civilised life. Inventive genius in Europe and America tried to utilise these science for new industries, and for other human needs. Thus new branches of engineering began to grow. To give a few examples:

Electrical engineering which now claims as many as, or more professionals and students than the older branches of civil or mechanical, started actually from the year 1882, when Edison built the first central electric power house to supply electrical power to factories, and light and power for domestic use to dwellers of a city The discovery of the law of electromagnetic induction was made by Faraday in 1831, but it required work of a half a century to put the discovery to practical use. .......continued.....