Arun Jaitley to lead over 100-strong Indian delegation to WEF meet

Geneva: India will have a strong presence of over 100 business and government leaders, led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, at the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos next week that would be attended by more than 2,500 participants from across the world including 40 heads of state.

The global leaders attending the five-day prestigious annual event in the Swiss ski resort town would include UK's David Cameron, Pakistan's Nawaz Sharif, Canada's Justin Trudeau, Alexis Tsipras of Greece, Mauricio Macri of Argentina, Joe Biden of the US and Johann Schneider-Ammann from the host Switzerland.

The 46th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum(WEF), spread over more than 300 sessions, would focus on fourth Industrial revolution, announced the Geneva-based non profit group that has been organising this Summit in Davos for more than four decades every January.

On the agenda of Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution are the acute challenges of geo-economics, global security, public health, education, gender parity and climate change, WEF said. The key issues to be discussed also include the "new normal" global growth and falling commodity prices.

The Co-Chairs of the Annual Meeting 2016 are General Motors' chief Mary Barra, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) General-Secretary Sharan Burrow, Microsoft's India-born CEO Satya Nadella, Hitachi's Chairman and CEO Hiroaki Nakanishi, Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam and Al Bawsala Founder Amira Yahyaoui.

Besides Jaitley, the Indian delegation would also include RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Trade and Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.

The prominent Indian business leaders would include Mukeshand Anil Ambani, Cyrus Mistry, Anand Mahindra, Rahul Bajaj, Azim Premji, Adi Godrej, Chanda Kochhar, Uday Kotak, Hari S Bhartia, Shyam Sunder Bhartia, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Naresh Goyal, Sunil Mittal, Rana Kapoor, Anant Gupta and C P Gurnani.

Besides, N Chandrasekaran, Ajit Gulabchand, Sajjan Jindal, Baba Kalyani, Madhu Kannan, Hemant Kanoria, Onkar S Kanwar, Manish Kejriwal, Rajiv Lall, Rajiv Memani, Rajan Mittal, Prashant Modi, Nirav Modi, Pawan Munjal, Ajay Piramal, Anuj Puri, Ravi and Shashi Ruia, Malvinder Mohan Singh, Tulsi Tanti and Ravi Uppal would also be present.

The young business leaders from India would be Karan Adani, Isha Ambani, Akash Ambani, Anant Bajaj, Sanjiv Bajaj, Dheeraj Hinduja, Rishad Premji, Ratul Puri, Huzaifa Khorakiwala, Nihal Kulkarni, Prashant Ruia and Nidhi Tanti. "The Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the fusion of technologies across the physical, digital and biological worlds which is creating entirely new capabilities and dramatic impacts on political, social and economic systems,

WEF Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said. "The speed, scale and systemic nature of this transformation have the potential to disrupt all sectors and call into question the essence of human nature and identity.

"The purpose of our Meeting this year is to build a shared understanding of this change, which is essential if we are to shape our collective future in a way that reflects ultimately that the human being should be at the centre," he added.

The 46th Annual Meeting of the WEF will focus on fourth Industrial revolution.

Commodity Prices would focus on the world facing another year with lower than 4 per cent global GDP growth. Experts will discuss ways of attaining inclusive, sustainable growth in an environment marked by continued low inflation, subdued oil and commodity prices and widespread currency weakness.

The participants discussing this key challenge include heads of European Central Bank, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as also Governors of the Central Banks of Canada, England, France, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Switzerland.

The global security issues, including the unfolding refugee crisis and recent terrorist acts around the world, would be discussed among others by Prime Ministers of Iraq, Tunisia, Lebanon and Pakistan, as also by the President of Afghanistan and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan.

On the first day, the WEF would declare its 22nd Annual Crystal Awards to celebrate the achievements of leading artists who have shown exemplary commitment to improving the state of the world.

This year's awardees are actress Yao Chen, actor and film producer Leonardo Di Caprio, artist Olafur Eliasson, and musician and entrepreneur will.i.am.

More than 40 cultural leaders will also attend the Meeting and include Bono (musician), Peter Gabriel (musician),John Green (author and blogger), Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy (film-maker), Platon (photographer), Elif Shafak (author) and Kevin Spacey (actor and theatre director).