NEW DELHI: Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria described the ongoing phase in India as an "extraordinary time" and said the country of his origin has once again become promising for international investors after the Narendra Modi government took over.

"This is an amazing business opportunity for India in terms of international sentiments. A decade ago India was very exciting but five years ago people that I came across started saying that they would to wait and see before they decide to invest in India," said Nohria, who was invited by Power Minister Piyush Goyal to address government officials.

"Today...is an extraordinary time for India, now people are not as excited about China as they were 5 years ago," he said, adding India has suddenly become promising once more.

Nohria, the first Dean of Indian origin of the prestigious U.S. business school, said the clear mandate of the new government is good for the business environment.

Terming the current phase as one that exudes guarded optimism, Nohria said: "FIIs will wait for 6 months to see if the initial excitement actually translates into concrete action and then FDI will begin to come in as well.

" Nearly a month after he invited author Chetan Bhagat, Power Minister Piyush Goyal today hosted Nohria with the idea of honing leadership skills of his ministry officials.

 "We invited him to give us a sense of what leadership is all about. The management talk with the top officials of the three (Power, Coal and Renewable Energy) ministeries...we discussed different aspects of leadership, how it is different in government and private sector," Goyal told reporters here.

Nohria became the tenth dean of Harvard Business School on July 1, 2010.

He previously served as co-chair of the Leadership Initiative, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Development, and Head of the Organisational Behaviour unit.