Kamal Nath set to lead Indian team at Davos meet
Road Transport Minister Kamal Nath is likely to lead close to 100-member Indian delegation at the prestigious World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, Swiss skiing resort on the Alps, between January 27-31.
With Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee dropping out of the Indian team, Nath is the senior most among Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia at the meeting, a regular fixture for global CEOs and leaders from different spheres like government, politics, religion, science and art.
"While it is up to the Prime Minister to decide as to who will head the Indian contingent, Nath is the senior most and is most likely to be named one," a senior official said. Mukherjee is understood to have dropped because of his pre-occupations with the Budget preparations.
Nath has been regularly participating in the WEF meet for the past several years.
Chairman of Wipro and well respected name in the Indian IT industry Azim Premji will be among the seven top global business leaders to be co-chairs of this year's meeting that has a central theme - Improve the State of the World: Rethink, Redesign, Rebuild.
Unlike last year when recession had hit the leading economies of the world, the business heads and the policy makers see better times ahead.
Dozens of sessions would include several Indians like Nath, Sharma, Ahluwalia, Infosys CEO and Managing Director Kris Gopalakrishnan, President and CEO of Pakistan's Habib Bank Zakir Mahmood, US Undersecretary of State for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affair Robert Hormats and Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Mahindra and Mahindra, Anand Mahindra will have a session on: 'Will India meet Global expectations'.
Indian CEOs including Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, ICICI Bank's Managing Director Chanda Kochchar, Bajaj Auto Chairman Rahul Bajaj, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, ITC Chairman Yogesh C Deveshwar, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh K Goyal and Bharti Enterprises Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal would move around the snow-laden town cementing their global networking.
While this would be the 40th WEF meeting, India has been actively participating there since the mid-nineties after ushering of the economic reforms. The Indian delegations have always been led by senior ministers like the Finance Ministers. Even then Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda had led the team in 1997
