It hasn't helped that the two marines were welcomed home by Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, looking like "heroes", says former foreign secretary Kanwal Sibal.
The young woman's husband was living in Chicago, Illinois, police said, but Kanwal remained at her father's home and worked at a metro Atlanta Wal-Mart for a brief time.
Engineers such as Vinod Dham started creating breakthrough technologies such as the Pentium chip, and entrepreneurs such as Kanwal Rekhi and Vinod Khosla co-founded companies like Excelan and Sun Microsystems.
But some, like former top diplomat Kanwal Sibal, believe the decision to return the marines is actually a "sorry commentary on the ineptness of Italian diplomacy", rather than a big triumph for the Indians.