India as an IT superpower

India's dramatic growth of the IT industry over the last couple of decades has made news all over the world. The incarnation of an impoverished developing country into a leader of Information Technology (IT) has surprised the scholars and the common folk alike. What helped the transition of an over populous country dealing with problems of illiteracy and malnutrition, natural disasters like draught, floods, earthquakes and tsunami besides terrorism and five full blown wars since independence into a situation where it is excelling in the cutting edge areas of IT and knowledge management?