One Indian panelist in every 55 sessions

DAVOS DIARY

How large is the India presence at Davos this year? Some numbers speak for themselves. There are 115 Indian delegates for the annual meeting this year, compared to around 40 last year.

Against only 17 sessions where Indian delegates used to speak in annual meetings in previous years, the number of sessions where an Indian is a panelist this year is 55.

That is one-fifth of the total number of sessions being held this year. The annual feature "" the India Briefing session over lunch, has been cancelled this year, as the WEF has decided to focus more on subject-specific sessions instead of devoting luncheon meetings to countries. But nobody seems to be lamenting this decision.

STRESSES COMMITMENT
Manmohan's message

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is not coming to Davos, but his message to the global investing community has been widely circulated here.

In a signed article written for one of the WEF publications, Singh has assured foreign investors that his government was "committed to doing all that we must to modernise and to expand India's infrastructure to make it world-class in the next five to seven years."

On reforms, Singh says: "We are committed to more reforms, especially aimed at bolstering the competitiveness of manufacturing."

His colleagues, Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek S Ahluwalia (WEF got an okay on their participation from the Prime Minister's office almost six months ago) will take part in the various sessions to take Singh's message forward.

Nath also has to attend the WTO mini-ministerial meeting of the trade ministers on Saturday to finalise the procedural details to implement the decisions taken at the Hong Kong meeting.

HOGS THE LIMELIGHT
Bajaj's humour

The irrepressible Rahul Bajaj once again displayed his sense of humour and hogged the limelight at India Inc's media interaction with the international press.

While introducing Ajit Gulabchand of Hindustan Construction, he said, "Ajit has been attending the Davos meeting for the last 20 years."

Even before this could be appreciated by the assembled press, he added, "It shows he was unemployed back home. And let me add that I have been attending the Davos meeting for the last 27 years."

On Malvinder Mohan Singh's recent elevation to the position of president of Ranbaxy, Bajaj said: "We always knew that he would run the company one day."

And while introducing Nandan Nilekani, who is the president, managing director and CEO of Infosys, Bajaj said: "Nandan's designation is so long that I always get confused."

RIL CHAIRMAN
Notable absentee

A notable absentee at India Inc's interaction with the international press today was Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries. Reliance was represented by its executive director, Nikhil Meswani, at this meeting. Last year also Ambani skipped Davos.

But this year, he is one of the co-chairs and was expected to be in Davos later on Wednesday. Another absentee this year is Infosys chief mentor, NR Narayana Murthy.

Last year, he was one of the co-chairs of the annual meeting here. This year he has taken a break. Infosys was one of the first companies to have displayed its commitment to the India Everywhere campaign by putting in $150,000 as its contribution to the project.

TOO MANY TO FIT IN
India delegates

The session on the emergence of India had a full attendance of over 130 delegates. The hall was full even before the scheduled start of the meeting. Outside the meeting room, there was a long queue of delegates, who wanted to get in and were willing to stand and listen to the deliberations.

Inside the room, there were few Indians. A large number of questions came up on India's competitive edge, the sustainability of its growth and on how India compared with China.

Unlike in the past, when India sessions had to be filled with mostly Indian industrialists and media representatives, the session on Wednesday underlined the growing interest of the international investing community in India.