'To know that globalisation is helping India, just spend three days in Bangalore\\'.

(From Indian Express)

Since September 11 Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist at The New York Times, has routinely been singled out as ''the most important opinion journalist in America''. The Pulitzer Prize committee confirmed that honour recently by conferring the prize for commentary on him-his third Pulitzer, the other two being for international reporting (from Lebanon and Israel). With his catchphrase driven columns, Friedman has been making sense of the emerging international order-as well as following the process of globalisation, which he advocates with an almost evangelical zeal. It is a theme he says he will return to soon in a book, a sequel to his 1999 bestseller The Lexus and the Olive Tree (the Lexus symbolising the globalisation system, the olive tree, old ties bases on culture, geography and tradition). In the meantime, next month Friedman will publish Longitudes and Attitudes, a collection of his column since September 11. In India for research for three forthcoming columns on Bangalore, Thomas Friedman spoke to MINI KAPOOR about globalisation, America's role in that great cause and India's stake in the process. The Lexus and the olive tree have been in furious conflict since September 11. Is the globalisation paradigm in fact over? I don't think …