Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lead an impressive delegation of business heads to Davos for the World Economic Forum meeting next week. Modi will deliver the opening plenary on January 23 while the President of United States Donald Trump will deliver the keynote address before the close of the meeting on January 26.
PM will be accompanied by six Union Ministers — Arun Jaitley, Piyush Goyal, Suresh Prabhu, Dharmendra Pradhan, MJ Akbar and Jitendra Singh. Besides, two Chief Ministers — Devendra Fadnavis and Chandrababu Naidu — and over 100 CEOs would take India's total presence to 129. This is the fourth highest after the United States that is bringing a delegation of 780 persons, followed by the United Kingdom (266) and Switzerland (233). China will have 118 participants. Among the business heads accompanying the PM are Indra Nooyi, Sundar Pichai, Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Rahul Bajaj and his son Sanjiv Bajaj, N Chandrasekaran, Chanda Kochhar, Uday Kotak, Naresh Goyal, Anand Mahindra, Salil Parekh, Sunil Mittal and son Kavin Mittal, Azim Premji, Ravi Ruia and Prashant Ruia, lakshmi Mittal with son Aditya Mittal, and Sajjan Jindal.
The Indian side is expected to stress on promoting use and development of electric vehicles in India, digital agriculture, promoting development of the railways industry in India, developing skills in a digital world and promoting design.
Modi will reach Davos on January 22 and hold bilaterals with his Swiss counterpart. The Ministry of External Affairs is also working for a brief meeting between Trump and Modi.