Ahead of his visit to Davos in Switzerland on Monday for the World Economic Forum, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that he looked forward to sharing his vision for India's engagement with the international community.
"The existing and emerging challenges to the contemporary international system and global governance architecture deserve serious attention of leaders, governments, policy-makers, corporates and civil societies around the world," Modi said in a pre-departure statement here.
"In recent years, India's engagement with the outside world has become truly and effectively multi-dimensional, covering political, economic, people-to-people, security and other spheres," he said.
"At Davos, I look forward to sharing my vision for India's future engagement with the international community."
Modi will be the first Prime Minister from India to participate in a forum meeting in two decades after the then Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda in 1997.
Explaining the significance of Modi's visit during a media briefing here on Friday, Vijay Gokhale, Secretary (Economic Relations) in the Ministry of External Affairs, said that in 1997, the Indian economy was well below $1 trillion whereas it is now above $2 trillion.
The main event in Davos will be the keynote speech of Modi at the plenary session on January 23.
In his statement, Modi said that apart from the events for the World Economic Forum, he looked forward to separate bilateral meetings with Swiss President Alain_Berset and Swedish Prime Minister Stefan lofven.
"I am confident that these bilateral meetings will be fruitful and give a boost to our relations with these countries and further strengthen economic engagement," he said.
According to Ramesh Abhishek, Secretary in the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, a dinner on Monday will be attended by CEOs of 60 companies.
On January 23, Modi will interact with 120 members of the International Business Council, which is a part of the WEF.
He will also interact with CEOs of Indian companies separately.
US Open winner Nadal stresses normality in interview
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Madrid, Sep 13 (IANS) 2017 has been a spectacular year for Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal, who has just added the US Open to the French Open he won earlier in the year and returned to number one in the World rankings at a time when many thought the 31-year-old's career had started to decline.
Speaking to the El Pais newspaper on Tuesday, Nadal stressed that for all of his titles, he is a normal person, reports Xinhua news agency.
"When I'm at home I lead a normal life... I'm just like any other person, like any of my friends," he said, saying his 'normality' was vital.
"That is what matters the most to me, much more than achievements in sport. Human success is more important to me: having friends, having a good relationship with the people around you, having the people who know you say good things about you... That's the most important thing of all," continued the tennis star who said that above trophies and titles "what matters the most is being a good person."
Titles can "bring you a lot of happiness and a lot of adrenaline and a lot of satisfaction, but in the long run, happiness comes from many other things," he insisted.
However, Nadal admitted that what he does best is play tennis, "we should all be aware of our own limitations, and I tend to know my own quite well," he said.
When asked if he had any worries, Nadal said all he worried about were "the basic things in life, like health -- not so much in terms of injuries but more like illnesses."
And he admitted that the time will come when he has to stop playing, but was confident that his love of sport in general will help him cope.
"It will happen when things don't go so well... that will be the time to think about doing something else. I'm lucky to be passionate about sport in general, not just tennis, both as a fan and as a player. I've often said that when the time comes, there will be many other things to make me very happy," he concluded.
