HISTORY OF TAMILNADU CHALLENGING THE WORLD

How come Tamil Nadu produced such a large number of highly intelligent people?

- 3 noble prizes came from Tamil Nadu C V Raman, Venkatraman, Chandrashekhar
-India most intelligent people,
 be it APJ abdul Kalam
 Raghuram Rajan
 Arvind subramanian
 Srinivas Ramanujan

Important point is they are all extremely intelligent,one of the best in their field, known for honesty and integrity but all of them apolitical.

Is above observation just coincidence or some cultural thrust on education among Tamils that is responsible for it?
Although similar pattern is observed for Bengali's also but Tamil Nadu seems to be producing big chunk of intellectual asset of India. Why?

A FIFTH of the world's people live on a dollar a day. More than a third are illiterate, and more than a hundred million have no access to basic health care, sanitation, or education. They make up a worldwide underclass whose continued deprivation defies the global rush toward prosperity that has otherwise defined much of this century. Today in the West and in parts of Asia living standards are at unprecedentedly high levels, but for 80 percent of the world's people, that prosperity remains elusive: they continue to earn less than 20 percent of the world's income.
Paradoxically, if there is hope for these people, perhaps it is to be found in a sliver of a state, 24,000 square miles, on the southwest coast of India -- one of the poorest countries in the world. That state, Kerala, is poor even by Indian standards. The gross domestic product per capita is just $1,000 a year -- some $200 less than the Indian average, and about one twenty-sixth of the American figure. Houses in Kerala are small; clothes are simple and unadorned. For most of Kerala's 33 million citizens life appears to be governed by the narrow circumscriptions of agriculture. Yet consider the following:

Life expectancy in Kerala is seventy-two years, which is closer to the American average of seventy-six than to the Indian average of sixty-one.

The infant-mortality rate in Kerala is among the lowest in the developing world -- roughly half that in China, and lower than that in far richer countries such as Argentina and Bahrain.

Population, too, is under control in Kerala. The fertility rate is just 1.7 births per woman -- lower even than Sweden's or America's.

What is perhaps most impressive is that 90 percent of Keralites are literate -- a figure that puts the state in a league with Singapore and Spain. Children in Kerala are likely to beg for pens, not money. Schools -- their classrooms clean, well-maintained, and filled with students in brightly colored uniforms -- are found seemingly every few miles throughout the state.