You would be somewhat correct. The First Post debunks the TOI, which has a reputation for dorky fanboyism, lying, misrepresenting, and general stupidity of its staff:
One in three Apple engineers is Indian? That's a stretch - Tech2
One in three Apple engineers is Indian? That’s a stretch
Apple’s recent quarterly earnings call pointed to
India as a growth market for iPads despite flagging sales in matured markets. India has also
contributed greatly to iPhone sales in the past two quarters, as Apple pushed its older models aggressively through various promotions.
So naturally, India figures towards the top of the list as far as Apple’s key markets are concerned, but
a report in a leading Indian dailytoday suggests that Apple also relies heavily on Indian IT talent. The report points out that one in 3 engineers employed by Apple is Indian, based on research conducted by HFS Research, a global business analysis firm.
While that high a proportion of Indians in Apple’s engineering workforce is of note, and the proportion sounds encouraging when looking at it from the Indian IT professional point of view, there are quite a few points of concern. Let’s look at the numbers cited in the report.
For one, the research says Apple employs around 12,000 people as “engineers, designers, marketers and other white-collar tech product workers”, but does not break down the figures further by each category. We are left to assume the number of engineers.
The second statistic that is being used to extrapolate the number of Indian engineers employed by Apple is the company’s H-1B visa applications, which is an indicator of the total number of foreigners (i.e not American citizens) hired by Apple. The report mentions two figures in this regard: “Apple filed 1,750 H-1B applications during the 10-year period 2001 to 2010, but the number increased sharply to 2,800 during 2011-13.”
And that’s about it. There’s no specificity as to the number of Indians in the total applications, nor about the total number of engineers. In fact, we don’t even know how many of those applications were accepted by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). So all we know is that Apple applied for 2,800 H-1B visas between 2011 and 2013.
Everything that follows is just an overview of how Apple has increased its reliance on Indian IT vendors. There’s nothing that directly indicates that one in every three Apple engineers is Indian. But yes, as the company banks on the new wave of iPhones for big revenue in yet another quarter, India, a key smartphone market, will play a big part in Apple’s growth story.
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India rising in US: Govt falls victim to net hoax - The Times of India
India rising in US: Govt falls victim to net hoax
WASHINGTON: It's an Internet myth that has taken on a life of its own. No matter how often you slay this phony legend, it keeps popping up again like some hydra-headed beast.
But on Monday, the Indian government itself consecrated the oft-circulated fiction as fact in Parliament, possibly laying itself open to a breach of privilege. By relaying to Rajya Sabha members (as reported in The Times of India) a host of unsubstantiated and inflated figures about Indian professionals in US, the government also made a laughing stock of itself.
The figures provided by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Purandeshwari included claims that 38 per cent of doctors in US are Indians, as are 36 per cent of NASA scientists and 34 per cent of Microsoft employees.
There is no survey that establishes these numbers, and absent a government clarification, it appears that the figures come from a shop-worn Internet chain mail that has been in circulation for many years. Spam has finally found its way into the Indian parliament dressed up as fact.
Attempts by this correspondent over the years to authenticate the figures have shown that it is exaggerated, and even false. Both Microsoft and NASA say they don't keep an ethnic headcount. While they acknowledge that a large number of their employees are of Indian origin, it is hardly in the 30-35 per cent range.
In a 2003 interview with this correspondent, Microsoft chief Bill Gates guessed that the number of Indians in the engineering sections of the company was perhaps in the region of 20 per cent, but he thought the overall figure was not true. NASA workers say the number of Indians in the organization is in the region of 4-5 per cent, but the 36 per cent figure is pure fiction.
The number of physicians of Indian-origin in the US is a little easier to estimate. The Association of American Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI) has 42,000 members, in addition to around 15,000 medical students and residents. There were an estimated 850,000 doctors in the US in 2004. So, conflating the figures, no more than ten per cent of the physicians in US maybe of Indian-origin - and that includes Indian-Americans - assuming not everyone is registered with AAPI.
These numbers in themselves are remarkable considering Indians constitute less than one per cent of the US population. But in its enthusiasm to spin the image of the successful global Indian to its advantage, the government appears to have milked a long-discredited spam - an effort seen by some readers as the work of a lazy bureaucrat and an inept minister.
The story has attracted withering scrutiny and criticism on the Times of India's website, with most readers across the world trashing it. "The minister should be hauled up by the house for breach of privilege of parliament (by presenting false information based on hearsay). We Indians are undoubtedly one of the most successful ethnic groups in USA, be it in Medicine, Engineering, Entrepreneurship. BUT, that does not translate to those ridiculous numbers that have been presented....this is a circulating e-mail hoax," wrote in Soumya from USA, who said he worked at the NASA facility in Ames, California, and the number was nowhere near what was mentioned in the figures given to Parliament.
"This minister (D.Purandeshwari, Minister of State for HRD)... should be held accountable for misleading the members of parliament and the citizens of India. This just shows how illiterate and mentally defunct the current Indian govt. is," wrote Anand from Melbourne.
Purandeshwari is not the first minister to use the dubious figures in a system where politicians depend heavily on their bureaucrats to furnish facts, figures, and speeches. Former home minister L.K.Advani used the same figures in a speech some years back on a visit to Washington DC.
A nation who can't even provide proper toilets to their citizens are more talented than Pakistanis 
