World Economic Forum 2006

The Annual Davos Meet continues to act as the greatest trendsetter in terms of laying new directions and establishing new paradigms in the world economic trends. Every year the visit is limited in invitation to the Who's Who's of the world. The Top CEO's like Charles Prince of Citigroup, Edward J. Zander of Motorola, Stephen A. Schwarzman of Blackstone Group, Henry A. McKinnell of Pfizer, Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP, Arun Sarin of Vodafone, David J. Stern of the NBA, Kai-Uwe Ricke of Deutche Telekom are there to name a few. But the strange aspect of this meet, which creates the unique yet powerful air to this summit is that, all participants are by invitations only. So, don’t feel cheated if your company CEO, COO is not on the list. I guess, they are not deemed special by the WEF selection board. But what made me write this BLOG is a comment on the WEF Blog titled "The elephants in the room" by Dan Bilefsky. The elephants being mentioned are India and China. The thing that peeved me off was the comment that the WEF forum shall discuss reforms/ideas to address the messy democracy of India. It fails to impress me that how could you point the democracy of India in that derogatory nature. I think it is high team people realize democracy is "by the people" and you got to appreciate and respect the settings of any democracy. Every country cannot be run in the US mode, which claims healthy public opinion, issue based elections, healthy infrastructure for entrepreneurship and capitalism as the only form of valid democracy. India chooses to establish its own path to success not only producing healthy entrepreneurs in the process (India has one of the most successful small business sector in the world) but also excelling with 7-8% GDP growth in the post liberalization world. Just because the developed countries feel that they are being beaten at their own game by the locals entrepreneurs does not warrant system changes. Play the game by the Rules of the Game. Home team has a distinct advantage. It is not that Indian system cannot improve and it may take some of the ideas from America, but I hate to see immature comments and use of terms such as messy democracy by people who have little to no knowledge about the rules of the game in India. India and Indians would continue to succeed with their hardworking attitude and strong moral and ethical backbone. I wish all the participants good luck at this year WEF Forum