When the world’s top business and political leaders begin their five-day brainstorming tomorrow at the Congress centre of the World Economic Forum (WEF) overlooking the snow-laden Alps, they would hope to get a clue on tackling the global meltdown not seen in the last 78 years.
This time around, there would be more number of heads of state — 40 as compared with 27 last year — not just listening to 1,400 global CEOs but also doing some plain-speaking to them on businesses getting it all wrong.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Premier Taro Aso of Japan have confirmed their participation.
It is for the first time in the history of the annual Davos meeting of the WEF that the US economy, along with several others impacted by it, has slipped into the worst kind of recession, putting millions of jobs at stake.
In their wildest dreams, no one would have seen that this year’s meeting at the Swiss ski resort could be held in the backdrop of the likes of Lehman Brothers disappearing from the world business.
“What we are experiencing is the birth of a new era, a wake-up call to overhaul our institutions, our systems and above all our way of thinking,” WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab has said.
India Inc, part of which was basking in the so-called “decoupling” glory of the Indian economy from the rest of the world till about a few months ago, would have its share of embarrassment.
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The likes of CII President and ICICI Bank CEO and Managing Director K V Kamath, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Kumar Mangalam Birla of the Aditya Birla Group, Anil Ambani of Reliance ADAG and Nandan Nilekani of Infosys would face questions on the unsavoury Satyam episode.
It is an irony that the Satyam Computer Services founder chairman, who is languishing at the Chanchalguda jail in Hyderabad, was to be among the co-chairs of the Davos event.
Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, head of the Indian delegation, is expected to give the ‘right kind of sound bytes’ to ensure that the entire India Inc is not painted with the same brush used for splashing the Satyam saga all around the world.
Nath, who will attend the WTO meeting on the fringes, has enough arsenal to deflect questions on Satyam fraud by taking on Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Citibanks' of the world.
Of course, there would be hopes hinging on the change of administration in the US. Expectations are running high on President Barack Obama and his team.
Whether Obama is able to do what Franklin D Roosevelt did to the sagging American economy 76 years ago would remain a hot debating point.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and several other multilateral institutions and agencies have warned tougher weeks and months ahead. IMF projects the world economy to grow at less than 1 per cent.
But that does not mean that there would be no takeaways from here. Ice on Alps would not melt soon even in the midst of a global meltdown.