You're right. Engineering [0] and engineer quality [1] in general in China is way better than in India. It is not even a competition. For instance, Google isn't setting up shop in India for their AI labs [2]. Another instance is when large internet companies in India sought talent from overseas when faced with big-company scale problems [3].
Also, my experience having worked and interviewed candidates in India for over 8yrs doesn't seem to disagree with that sentiment at all.
[0].
I would agree that Indian startups haven't done something remarkably good technically till now. One reason can be that a lot of them didn't get to grow in isolation using government protection from foreign enterprises and resources. So they were competing against established players with a lot of experience compared to them. Initially, most of the people who used Internet in India had some knowledge of English, so it became very easy for US based companies to penetrate the market as they could mostly launch the same products without much customization.
[1] and [3]
Highly debatable and depends on which company you are hiring for. Good candidates are going to apply in companies they consider to be good. Snapdeal wasn't known for its good engineering, work culture or hiring bar. I don't know which startup the YC commenter interviewed for.
[2] might just be because of lack of active CS research going on in the country. Most people interested in research leave the country for better pastures. Btw MSR does have office in India
Also, my experience having worked and interviewed candidates in India for over 8yrs doesn't seem to disagree with that sentiment at all.
[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/7-chinese-companies-that-will-...
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6429793
[2] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/software/google-to...
[3] https://yourstory.com/2015/05/twitter-war-sachin-rohit-bansa...