The annual summit in Davos, is probably the world’s most iconic display of elite-driven globalization. Thousands of leaders in business, finance, politics, and civic society gather in the snow-covered Alps to schmooze and strike deals intended to break down economic barriers between nations and make the global community more connected. Davos is the ultimate club for establishment elites.

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Cybersecurity is crucial to keep the world safe, global leaders have urged India and the US to join an international coalition against cyber threats.

Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim are among the co-chairs of the 2019 edition of this annual congregation of world leaders from January 21-25.

Nadella and Kim would be joined by six young leaders under the age of 30 as co-chairs -- Basima Abdulrahman from Iraq, Juan David Aristizabal from Colombia, Sweden's Noura Berrouba, Julia Luscombe from the US, Mohammed Hassan Mohamud from Kenya and Japan's Akira Sakano.

The theme of the event would be 'Globalization 4.0: Shaping a Global Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution', while there would be several India-focussed sessions. Besides, the country's political scenario may hog the limelight, with the event taking place after five state polls and ahead of the national election.

The event would also be attended by CEOs of a large number of MNCs including Adidas, Rio Tinto, Embraer, AXA, Societe Generale, Total, Allianz, Bayer, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, KPMG, Siemens, Generali, Hitachi, Nomura, Sumitomo, IKEA, Royal Dutch Shell, Telenor, Alibaba, Credit Suisse, Nestle, Novartis, UBS, Barclays, BP, Standard Chartered, Unilever, Bank of America, Cargill, Citi, Cisco, Dell, IBM, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Coca-Cola and Visa.

 

The global public figures would include Afghanistan's Abdullah Abdullah, King and Queen of Belgium, King of Morocco, Queen of Jordan as also presidents of Azerbaijan, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Iraq, Peru, Rwanda, Serbia, South Africa and Ukraine, among other countries.
 

The prime ministers would include those of Bulgaria, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Peru, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

"The world's biggest democracy needs to stand with the world's other great democratic nations. The world needs India," Microsoft's President and Chief Legal Officer Bradford L Smith said here at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2019.

The world depends on digital infrastructure, it depends on our devices, and they're under attack every single day. During the discussion, Smith and other experts hoped that democracies which have not signed the Paris Call of November 12, 2018 for Trust and Security in Cyberspace, including India and the US, will join the multi-stakeholder initiative to discuss on the development of common principles for securing cyberspace.

"We do know that 30 million Americans have read intentional disinformation by governments, and they shared it, they liked it, and they believed it. It was done with the goal of disrupting democracy. It was not limited to the United States alone … Every single candidate running for the French presidency was attacked in some way. It is a problem, a threat to democracy, and needs to be addressed," he said. Smith and other cybersecurity experts emphasized the importance of attribution but said that itself is not enough.

Smith also said that the responsibility for security begins with the tech companies themselves. Tech companies and the sector as a whole need to address this, and they must start with acknowledging the scepticism," he said.

Special Address by Donald J. Trump, President of the United States of America. The world is witnessing the resurgence of a strong and prosperous America.

I am here to deliver a simple message: There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States. AMERICA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS AND WE ARE COMPETITIVE ONCE AGAIN.

The American economy is by far the largest in the world and we’ve just enacted the most significant tax cuts and reform IN AMERICAN HISTORY.We massively cut taxes for the middle class and small businesses to let working families keep more of their hard-earned money.

We lowered our corporate tax rate from 35 percent, all the way down to 21 percent. As a result, millions of workers have received tax cut bonuses from their employers in amounts as large as three thousand dollars. The tax cut bill is expected to raise the average American’s household income by more than four thousand dollars.

Alison Martin, group chief risk officer at Zurich Insurance Company, said cyber is the number one risk of doing business in many parts of the world. He further explains, If you drive badly, then we charge you a bit more. But if you have bad digital hygiene, you risk infecting everyone, so charging more isn't the answer," Martin said.

Besides, economic loss due to cyber crime is predicted to reach USS 3 trillion by 2020, and 74 per cent of the world's businesses can expect to be hacked in the coming year, another research has showed.

In Box: Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said on Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, that his country would use its chairmanship of the Group of 20 nations this year to push for a new international system governing how data is used.

Executives from Facebook, Twitter, Google and Apple wined and dined with the elected officials and regulators who are responsible for holding their companies to account. A lot is at stake. The European Union is looking to enforce its new privacy regulations, and in the United States the Federal Trade Commission is expected to round out its investigation of Facebook within the next month or so.

Countries including India, Indonesia, Ukraine and Israel. Everyone will be watching to see whether social media is rife with false news and disinformation, and the tech companies will have a chance to show that they’ve changed for the better.

It is fact that, many people on Twitter use fake names; many more use fake photos. Neither practice is explicitly against Twitter’s rules, and in many ways the account used Twitter for exactly what the platform was designed to do — to make something go viral.

French regulators announced that they had fined Google 50 million euros, or about $57 million, for not properly disclosing how it collected data about its users across its services. Adam Satariano wrote that it was the largest penalty of its kind levied by the European Union, which last year adopted a sweeping new data privacy law known as the General Data Protection Regulation.

CEOs of global corporations, central bankers, economists, civil society leaders, media heads, celebrities and heads of international organisations like IMF, WTO, OECD and World Bank will also be present.
 

The rapid spread of digital technology in daily life and the implications that has on the future of work and data security will require more international cooperation, not less, Ms. Merkel said. But she acknowledged that nobody knows how to write the rules.

The World Economic Forum is being attended by Arun Jaitley, Kamal Nath to join over 100 Indian leaders in Davos for WEF annual meet. The rich and powerful from across the globe are flocking to the ski resort town of Davos on the Swiss Alps for five days beginning today to discuss what's ailing the world economy. More than 100 CEOs from India are expected to attend.

From India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and Dharmendra Pradhan have dropped out and so has Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. Other political leaders from India attended the event including Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, Andhra Pradesh minister Lokesh Nara and Punjab minister Manpreet Badal.

There are a number of Indian corporate honchos among the registered participants, including Gautam Adani, Mukesh Ambani (with wife Nita and children Akash and Isha), Sanjiv Bajaj, N Chandrasekaran, Sajjan Jindal, Anand Mahindra, Sunil Mittal, Nandan Nilekani, Salil Parekh, Azim Premji and son Rishad, C P Gurnani, Sajjan Jindal, Baba Kalyani, Shobana Kamineni, Manish Kejriwal, Sunil Mittal, Pawan Munjal, Roshni Nadar, Abidali Neemuchwala, Salil S Parekh, Adar C Poonawala, Ravi and Prashant Ruia, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Tulsi Tanti with daughter Nidhi, Ajay Singh and Kapil Wadhawan are also expected to attend the event.

Celebrity film producer and director Karan Johar, former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, New Development Bank President K V Kamath and IMF Chief Economist Gita Gopinath are also expected to be there.