Former premiers, Nobel prize winners to attend TERI event

These former premiers will be participating in the Conference on Global Sustainable Development in the 21st century, being organised from February 19 as part of TERI’s silver jubilee, which will be inaugurated by President K.R. Narayanan.

The guest list also includes Robert S. McNamara, former US defence secretary and the president of the World Bank,besides Nobel laureates Prof Sherwood Rowland from the US and Prof Carlo Rubbia from Italy besides World Bank vice-president Ian Johnston.

Speaking to the The Indian Express, Dr R.K. Pachauri, director, TERI, said that hosting a power gathering would help them address the issues of sustainable development and environmental security in a more powerful manner. “We want to focus on issues of sustainable development so we decided to get a range of people to address some of the major challenges that will confront us in the 21st century…they considered the issue relevant and accepted our invitation.”

Apart from speaking at the TERI birthday conference, these global leaders are also expected to use this opportunity to have discussions with Indian leaders. Hashemoto is the supreme advisor on foreign relations to the Japanese Prime Minister Obuchi and is expected to hold discussions with Indian leaders on a host of issues, including the CTBT.

Though sources in the MEA say that there is no exact scheduledrawn for the meetings, it agrees that it would be significant to have such a large number of key figures in the Capital.