Grand business event fails to ensure even minimum attendance from top corporate honchos and Government representatives
With all the brouhaha created to organise a mega event like India Economic Summit- by the World Economic Forum in partnership with industry chamber CII - the grand function was completely sidelined by the top corporate leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself. A grand business event, billed as a forum to discuss pressing economic and policy matters by top corporate honchos and Government representatives, failed to ensure even minimum attendance from both the parties. At a time when India is marketing itself as an emerging investment and business destination to attract global investors, lack of industry and Government participation made the event a trivial one.
The three day lacklusture event was missed by industrialists like Reliance Industries, Chairman Mukesh Ambani and ADAG Chief Anil Ambani, Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry, Aditya Birla Group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and Essar Group Chairman Shashi Ruia. Also missing from the list are some of the captains from the country’s public sector companies and banks. These include ONGC Chairman Dinesh K Sarraf, SAIl Chairman CS Verma, SBI Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya and PNB CMD KR Kamath. Private bankers like ICICI Bank Chief Chanda Kochhar and HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh also gave it a miss.
There seems to be a lack of co-ordination between the two main organizers, i.e. CII and WEF. This is evident from the fact that over the last couple of years, a section of the media fails to get registered for the event (a procedure which normally begins a month before the event). When contacted both the organizers appeared clueless and could not come up with a clear explanations. Even the big names from the country’s IT sector are absent. These include TCS CEO and MD N Chandrasekaran, Wipro chairman Azim Premji and Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) was trying to re-establish relationship with its 27 years old partner - the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), by coming together again and organizing the mega event. Many industry experts believe that even the international business community and investors have lost the charm of the event and didn’t turn up. However, there were some saving grace with attendance from a few big wigs like Anand Mahindra, Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Mittal, Godrej Group Chairman Adi Godrej, Bajaj Auto’s Rahul Bajaj and Kotak Mahindra Bank Vice-Chairman Uday Kotak.