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Over 100 Indian CEOs to attend World Economic Forum

Agencies
January 20, 2019

Davos, Jan 20: The rich and powerful from across the globe will flock to this ski resort town on the Swiss Alps for five days beginning Monday to discuss what's ailing the world amid fears of the global economy sleepwalking into a crisis, with more than 100 CEOs from India expected to be in attendance.

While ongoing political and economic issues in their respective countries have already led to several top leaders, including the US President Donald Trump, Britain's Theresa May, France's Emmanuel Macron and Russia's Vladimir Putin, deciding to stay away from this annual jamboree, many participants believe their absence has further underlined the need for an immediate brain-storming over the imminent risks faced by the world.

Those expected to attend include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Swiss President Ueli Maurer, Japan's Shinzo Abe, Italy's Giuseppe Conte and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu among more than 30 heads of state/government, as also CEOs of global corporations, central bankers, economists, civil society leaders, media heads, celebrities and heads of international organisations like IMF, WTO, OECD and World Bank, among more than 3,000 participants.

From India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as also his cabinet colleague Dharmendra Pradhan have dropped out and so has Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The political leaders from India attending the event include Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, Andhra Pradesh minister Lokesh Nara and Punjab minister Manpreet Badal.

There are a number of Indian corporate honchos among the registered participants, including Gautam Adani, Mukesh Ambani (with wife Nita and children Akash and Isha), Sanjiv Bajaj, N Chandrasekaran, Sajjan Jindal, Anand Mahindra, Sunil Mittal, Nandan Nilekani, Salil Parekh, Azim Premji and son Rishad, Ravi Ruia and Ajay Singh.

Celebrity film producer and director Karan Johar, as also former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, New Development Bank President K V Kamath and IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath are also expected to be there.

Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella will be among the co-chairs of the 2019 edition of this annual congregation of world leaders from January 21-25.

He would be joined by six young leaders under the age of 30 as co-chairs -- Basima Abdulrahman from Iraq, Juan David Aristizabal from Colombia, Sweden's Noura Berrouba, Julia Luscombe from the US, Mohammed Hassan Mohamud from Kenya and Japan's Akira Sakano.

The theme of the event would be 'Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution', which would have several India-focussed sessions. Besides, India's political scenario may hog the limelight, with the event taking place ahead of the national elections.

According to Geneva-based WEF, which describes itself as a public-private partnership for international cooperation, the leaders at this annual summit would discuss how globalisation can work as well as identify new models for peace, inclusiveness and sustainability, while the top agenda would also include climate change and international governance.

Some of the key issues likely to be deliberated upon include top global risks identified by the WEF in its annual pre-Davos survey, including rising geopolitical and geoeconomic tensions.

The WEF has warned that worsening international relations are hindering a collective will to tackle these concerns. The report also flagged massive incidents of data fraud and large-scale cyber attacks among the biggest risks in terms of likelihood, while it also listed increasing polarisation of societies and growing wealth disparity among the key concerns.

The report, based on a survey of nearly 1,000 experts and decision-makers from across the world, said that nine out of ten respondents expect the economy to worsen due to rising geopolitical tensions.

"This fourth wave of globalisation needs to be human-centred, inclusive and sustainable. We are entering a period of profound global instability brought on by the technological disruption of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the realignment of geo-economics and geopolitical forces," WEF's Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab said.

"We need principals from all stakeholder groups in Davos to summon the imagination and commitment necessary to tackle it," he added.

There would be more than 350 official sessions during the five-day event and the meeting will host over 900 civil society and 1,700 business leaders.

The event would also be attended by CEOs of a large number of MNCs, including Adidas, Rio Tinto, Embraer, AXA, Societe Generale, Total, Allianz, Bayer, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, KPMG, Siemens, Generali, Hitachi, Nomura, Sumitomo, IKEA, Royal Dutch Shell, Telenor, Alibaba, Credit Suisse, Nestle, Novartis, UBS, Barclays, BP, Standard Chartered, Unilever, Bank of America, Cargill, Citi, Cisco, Dell, IBM, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Coca-Cola and Visa.

Besides the official sessions, industry body CII and several other Indian groups have also lined up their own meetings on the sidelines.

At a session on emerging markets outlook, discussions would be about whether policymakers are equipped to avert a hard economic landing with highly-leveraged emerging market economies feeling the pinch from growing protectionism and tightening monetary conditions in the US.

Another session would focus on 'India and the World', which would cover the country's emergence as a compelling growth story and the questions being raised about its long-term sustainability due to a falling rupee, volatile external financial markets, worsening current account deficit and stress in the banking sector.

One official session would discuss India's consumer markets and how its lessons can be applied to other fast-growth economies.

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Agencies
May 27,2020

Global health experts on Wednesday said novel coronavirus is here to stay for more than a year and called for aggressive testing to prevent its spread.

In an interaction with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, health experts Professor Ashish Jha and Professor Johan Giesecke talked about the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the series being aired on Congress social media channels.

While Jha exuded confidence that a vaccine will be available in a year's time, Prof Giesecke said India should practice a lockdown that is as 'soft' as possible, as a severe lockdown will ruin its economy very quickly.

"When the economy is opened up after lockdown, you have to create confidence among people," Harvard health expert Ashish Jha told Gandhi.

Jha is a professor of Global Health at TH Chan School of Public Health and Director, Harvard Global Health institute.

He said coronavirus is a '12-18 months' problem and the world is not going to be free of this till 2021.

The expert also called for the need for aggressive testing strategy for high-risk areas.

Gandhi, while interacting with the experts, said life is going to change post COVID-19.

"If 9/11 was a new chapter, this will be a new book," he remarked.

Professor Johan Giesecke, former chief scientist, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said India should have a 'soft lockdown'.

"The situation that India is in, I think, you should have a soft lockdown, as soft as possible," he said.

"I think for India, you will ruin your economy very quickly if you have a severe lockdown. It is better, skip the lockdown, take care of the old and the frail...," he noted.

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News Network
February 14,2020

Feb 14: R K Pachauri, a former chief of The Energy and Resources Institute, passed away on Thursday after a prolonged cardiac ailment, TERI Director General Ajay Mathur said.

He was 79.

"It is with immense sadness that we announce the passing away of R K Pachauri, the founder Director of TERI. The entire TERI family stands with the family of Dr Pachauri in this hour of grief," Mathur said in a statement issued by the TERI.

"TERI is what it is because of Dr Pachauri's untiring perseverance. He played a pivotal role in growing this institution, and making it a premier global organisation in the sustainability space," said Mathur, who succeeded Pachauri at TERI in 2015. Pachauri was admitted to Escorts Heart Institute in the national capital where he underwent open heart surgery and was put on life support on Tuesday, sources said.

In the statement issued by TERI, its Chairman Nitin Desai hailed Pachauri's contribution to global sustainable development as "unparalleled".

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News Network
May 27,2020

Muzaffarpur, May 27: A toddler's vain attempt to wake up his dead mother from eternal sleep on a railway platform in Bihar's Muzaffarpur on Wednesday presented the most poignant picture of the massive migrant tragedy unfolding across several states.

A video tweeted by Sanjay Yadav, an aide to RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, shows the child walking unsteadily up to his mother's body, tugging at the blanket placed over her, and when failing to wake her up, covering his own head with it.

As the mother still lay still, he wobbles away from her, announcements continuing in the background about the arrival and departure of trains that would bring in tens of thousands of people in a rush to get away from hunger and hardship they face in large cities that could sustain them no more.

"This small child doesn't know that the bedsheet with which he is playing is the shroud of his mother who has gone into eternal sleep. This mother died of hunger and thirst after being on a train for four days. Who is responsible for these deaths on trains? Shouldn't the opposition ask uncomfortable questions?" tweeted Yadav.

However, police had a different story to tell.

Ramakant Upadhyay, the Dy SP of the Government Railway Police in Muzaffarpur, said the incident occurred on May 25 when the migrant woman was on way to Muzaffarpur from Ahmedabad by a Shramik Special train.

He told reporters the woman, who was accompanied by her sister and brother-in-law, had died on the Madhubani bound train.

"My sister-in-law died suddenly on the train. We did not face any problem getting food or water," the officer said, quoting the deceased's brother-in-law who he did not name.

He said on getting information, poice brought down the body and sent it for postmortem.

Citing the brother-in-law of the deceased, Upadhyay said she was aged 35 years and was undergoing treatment for "some disease" for the last one year in Ahmedabad. "She was also mentally unstable," he said.

When persistently queried about the cause of death, he said,"Only doctors can tell".

A massive exodus of migrant workers is on in several parts of the country, unprecedented in magnitude since Partition.

The humanitarian crisis still unfolding on highways and railway platforms has shone light on disturbing tales of entire families walking hundreds of kilometres with little children on foot in a seemingly endless march to escape hunger.

People have been found travelling on trucks and in the hollow of concrete mixing plants, and in many cases, dying from hunger and exhaustion before reaching their destinations.

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