Just when Thomas L Friedman's The World is Flat, and Shashi Tharoor's The Elephant, The Tiger, and The Cell Phone, had taken the world by storm, Dossani penned India Arriving: How This Economic Powerhouse is Redefining Global Business. In the book, this Kolkata-born senior research scholar and executive director of the South Asia Initiative at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, presented an unflinching portrayal of an often romanticised and often misunderstood country.

Dossani, 53, teaches courses in South Asian development, identity and politics at Stanford. He had earlier worked with the Robert Fleming Investment Banking Group, has been the chairman and chief executive officer of a stockbroking firm in India, deputy editor of Business India and a professor of finance at Pennsylvania State University.

In an interview with rediff.com, Dossani spoke about the scourge of inflation, the United Progressive Alliance government's handling of the economy, and other issues. Read on. . .

Text: Indrani Roy Mitra

Image: Forty-pound bags of rice are seen, with customers limited to purchases of two bags to prevent hoarding, in the predominantly South Asian neighbourhood of Jackson Heights in the Queens borough of New York City. (Inset) Rafiq Dossani. | Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images