India and the World

He’s been compared to Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs. His company, Infosys, became huge taking over backroom software operations for companies around the world — many in the U.S. New York Times columnist Tom Friedman used Nilekani's firm as Exhibit A in arguing that the world has turned "flat" — that is, wide open for global competition.

Now, the world economy has also turned stone cold. How does it look from the land of Nilekani?

This hour, On Point: Superstar Nandan Nilekani, and the view from India now.

You can join the conversation. If the world is flat, what do you need to hear from India about how we all get out of this mess? Do you see India as an economic partner? An economic problem?Guests:

Nandan Nilekani joins us from New York. He is a co-founder and now co-chairman of Infosys Technologies, based in Bangalore, one of India’s largest IT companies. In 2006 Time magazine listed him as one of the world’s 100 most influential people and Forbes named him “Businessman of the Year” for Asia. New York Times columnist and author Tom Friedman made Nandan Nilekani a global brand in his book “The World is Flat.” Nilekani's new book is “Imagining India: The Idea of a Renewed Nation.” Watch Nilekani's appearance on last night's Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Joining us from Palo Alto, California, is Gururaj “Desh” Deshpande, co-founder of the American IT firm Sycamore Networks and chairman of its Board of Directors. He and his wife are founding donors of MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and trustees of the Deshpande Foundation in India. Himself Indian, he has lived here in the U.S. for the last 30 years.