Global meltdown might end by 2011: Meghnad Desai

The speaker series resumed on Saturday with Lord Desai, Professor Emeritus, London School of Economics, and N Ramchandran, Country Head, India, Morgan Stanley starting the proceedings. Desai said there are two crises as of now. One is in the financial markets and the other is the downturn in the real output cycle. He stressed on the need to change the governance of international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in order to move forward.

The day ended with a panel discussion on 8216;The financial crisis 8212; Have we reached the bottom yet?8217;

The most important event of the day was the Gujarat state Petroleum Corporation Masterplan, the flagship business plan event of Confluence 2008. In the finals, innovative business plans in the fields of renewable energy like biomass, Refuse Derived Fuel in energy transmission and production, were presented. Other ideas included 8216;Strategically placed small scale power plants8217; and 8216;Corporative model for Jatropha-based bio-diesel production8217;.