Davos:
A day before the World Economic Forum (WEF) was scheduled to start in Davos, the highest town in Europe has turned into a fortress with the deployment of 5,000 Swiss army personnel. Over the next week, the small Alpine resort town will host some of the biggest names in the world– from business to government and civil society to art and culture and a lot of others– for the rare annual confluence.
Swiss Parliament has approved the deployment of a maximum of 5,000 soldiers, some of those equipped with the latest gadgets like drones and AI-powered tools, to support the large number of police and civilian personnel tasked to secure the Swizz skeeting town. Given the high-profile nature of the event, beginning Monday, the security is both discreet and visible and comprises snipers, drone jammers, regular frisking and checking and round-the-clock patrol.
The 2025 WEF meeting will be held from January 20-24, but the Swiss Army’s mission lasts from January 14-30. The 55th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum will convene under the theme, Collaboration for the Intelligent Age.
All About World Economic Forum In Davo
It all began in the early 1970s when the Cold War split the world while the Vietnam War split America. An oil crisis was looming over the world when a German economics professor had a bright idea. Professor Klaus Schwab came up with “stakeholder theory”, which states that a “company should serve all its stakeholders, not just its shareholders– employees, suppliers, and the community it is part of. The idea was unconventional at the time, but it has since taken hold.”
According to Schwab, “It is a form of capitalism in which companies do not only optimize short-term profits for shareholders, but seek long-term value creation, by taking into account the needs of all their stakeholders, and society at large.”
In 1971, Professor Schwab founded the World Economic Forum as a not-for-profit foundation under the supervision of the Swiss Federal Government to promote stakeholder capitalism. He chose Davos as the home for the annual meeting for the escape from the every day that the mountains represent in Swiss and German culture.
Initially, the forum focused on how European firms could catch up with US management practices. But by 1973, global events like the Arab-Israeli War and the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate mechanism led to the annual gathering expanding its focus from management to economic and social issues.
In 1975, the forum introduced a membership system for ‘the 1,000 leading companies of the world’. Since then, every year, Davos brings together some 3,000 participants (including paying members and selected invitees), among whom are investors, business leaders, political leaders, economists, celebrities and journalists, for a five-day summit that discusses global issues.
Per the forum’s official site, over the last fifty years, Davos has addressed the key events of world history, from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the rise of economic globalization and runaway climate change. It also contributed to averting a war between Greece and Türkiye, built economic bridges around the world, and gave a platform to leading environmentalists among other things.
List Of Key Attendees At 2025 WTF
US President-elect Donald Trump, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be among 60 top political leaders from across the world who will address the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos from Monday.
Announcing the detailed schedule, Geneva-based WEF last week said the meeting would see participation by nearly 3,000 leaders from over 130 countries, including 350 governmental leaders.
Among top political leaders, Trump will join via live video link for an interactive dialogue with participants, while those present in person would include European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, China’s Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Argentina President Javier Milei, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, South Africa President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, and Spain President Pedro Sanchez.
Swiss President Karin Keller-Sutter, Bangladesh Government’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, Iraq President Abdulatif Rashid, Israel President Isaac Herzog, Malaysia President Anwar Ibrahim, Palestinian National Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Viet Nam PM Pham Minh Chinh will also be there.
Heads of international organisations taking part would include World Trade Organization’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, IMF’s Kristalina Georgieva, NATO’s Mark Rutte, WHO’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and UNDP’s Achim Steiner.
Indian participation would include five union ministers — Ashwini Vaishnaw, CR Patil, K Ram Mohan Naidu, Chirag Paswan and Jayant Chaudhary — and three chief ministers — Devendra Fadnavis, N Chandrababu Naidu and Revant Reddy, along with other ministers from other states and over 100 CEOs.
With the global economy undergoing a paradigm shift, the five-day meeting beginning January 20 will explore how to re-launch growth, harness new technologies and strengthen social and economic resilience, the WEF said in a statement.
Over 1,600 business leaders, including more than 900 of the world’s top CEOs, will also participate, along with over 120 of which are Global Innovators, Tech Pioneers and Unicorns who are transforming industries.
More than 170 leaders from civil society and the social sector — from labour unions, non-governmental organisations, religious and indigenous communities, as well as experts and heads of the world’s leading universities, research institutions and think tanks — will participate in the meeting.
India Pavillion
States in India have used to have fierce competition for setting up individual pavilions along the promenade at Davos during the World Economic Forum (WEF). This was to vie for larger chalets to attract global investors and make a mark. But, in a significant shift, this year there will be just two India pavilions- one occupied by the Union Government delegation while the other by six states- Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. All state will, however, reportedly have their own floors in the second pavilion.
Talking about the agenda of WTF 2025, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Sunday said there was a lot of interest globally in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s economic policies, which would be the focus of discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Vaishnaw is leading the Indian delegation at the annual World Economic Forum meeting beginning Monday. He noted that there was a lot of interest in India’s growth story among the international community, particularly about the digital transformation and the new digital architecture.
“In the World Economic Forum in Davos, there is lot of interest in understanding our thought process, the prime minister’s economic policy, about the digital transformation, about the way India has created new digital architecture under the Digital India programme and also the way technology has been democratised. There is a lot of interest on this,” he said.
There will be detailed discussions about inclusive growth, the investment in social, physical, digital infrastructure and on democratising technology, he added.
“The prime minister has put huge focus on inclusive development and a growth that brings a big transformative change in the lives of the people at the bottom of the pyramid, people who have been left out of development over many decades in the past,” said Vaishnaw, the minister for information and broadcasting, railways, and electronics and information technology.
“Whether it is bank accounts, providing toilets, gas connections, tap water connections, getting the basic infrastructure in villages done, infrastructure in urban areas done, this is something which the world wants to understand,” he added.
