How am I eligible to give you this advice?

Hello there! I am someone with a B.Tech degree in ECE from IIIT Jabalpur, India (assign whatever tier you like). It is an institute much better than most of the government institutes in India, including several NITs (except the top 3 or 4) and other IIITs. Better in terms of what? Well! in terms of research, that is what this page is all about. But, as we all know, in India, there is a tremendous gap between the IITs/IISc (here, I am considering only the institutes that have engineering because for science there are many other good institutes) and the rest of the institutes in terms of everything (funding, connectivity, international opportunities, research, intensity of courses (name may be the same, but it differs a lot), reputation, and whatever else you could think of). But, the only important factor that can hold someone from reaching heights is the environment with no research motivation. So, coming back to the point, I have no international research experience (Covid killed it) nor do I have any recommender who is highly recognized in my field (no offense, but it's true). What I do have is highly reputed publications, experience in varied fields of research, and a research position at IIT Madras after my B.Tech. With these things and the five P's of life, I was able to receive Ph.D. offers from 3 reputed places (UMD, UW Seattle, and Purdue) out of just 6 (this has a sad story again related to my institute, but let us not get into this) applications.

During my journey, I had literally no one around to guide me through most parts (how to begin my research, whom to approach, what and when to learn, what are the research-based internship programs for undergrads, what are difficulties in the application process, how to approach faculties for Ph.D. or other positions, where, when and how to search for internships, how to analyze the right groups to apply, and many other such confusing things.......). I did all by myself. Spend over 2 years tabulating the interesting groups, universities, programs, and other related stuff. Spend months during my second year to get all the possible internship programs I could apply for (It even happened that I came across many of them after their deadline). This was a great struggle, but I firmly believe that these struggles are the ones that make you strong, aware, and independent. So, I want to help others, but not spoon-feed them. I only aim that the future applicants do not suffer because of a lack of information or waste their valuable time on some unnecessary things.