It's billed as the biggest global business event. The World Economic Forum global annual meet which started today in this small snow-capped ski resort, also began with the celebration 20 year’s of India’s participation at the annual summit.In a packed and overflowing session that preceded the presentation by former US president Bill Clinton, Klaus Scwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum formally paid tribute to India and its political and business leaders and in particularly pointed out Rahul Bajaj who has actually been attending the session as a private member even before that. Importantly, Minister for Disinvestment and Information Technology and Communications Arun Shourie who is here leading the India delegation said that there has been a sea change today in how the global investing community views India.Earlier in the day, the agenda and tenor of India’s importance was set at a breakfast meeting of the India Advisory Council at Central Sport hotel, outside the congress venue to chalk out a series of programmes of the 20th year of participation. India with about fifty delegates from business, government, media, and NGOs possibly has second largest participation after the US.The next five days will see about 2,500 leaders from about 93 countries, including heads of states, global CEOs including Bill Gates, Michael Dell, Samuael Di Piazza, CEO of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Betrand Collomb, chairman of Lafarge, Kunihiko Adachi, CEO of Adachi and John Chambers of Cisco and a host of NGO chiefs participate in a number of brain-storming sessions that will bring together the public and private partnerships.Alongside the main sessions, there are a number of private and closed door sessions and workshops that are going on in Davos.The main sessions are already overbooked and participation has been closed. Some of the most interesting sessions that are being looked forward to include one on Global Brands at Risk. In this session, Michael White, chairman and CEO of Pepsico International, Martin Sorell, group CEO of WPP and Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony Corporation will talk particularly on how global geopolictical events will shape and affect the global brands through public opinion.There is another one on reinventing growth which will be attended by Michael Dell. A full session with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is also on the anvil who arrives in Davos for just a day on the January 22.
