A powerful international industrialist, Rajiv Bajaj the managing director of leading motorbike manufacturer Bajaj Auto of India, mocked the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, saying the annual power powwow in the Swiss Alps was the source of half the world’s problems.
Bajaj told reporters he would reluctantly travel to the exclusive ski resort for the meeting for the first time later this month. “I think half the problems start from the World Economic Forum,” he said at a product launch in New Delhi at a product launch in New Delhi when asked about the glitzy January 25-29 meeting that draws both praise and scorn in equal measure from all walks of humanity.
His lack of enthusiasm for the Davos gathering stems from his skepticism of “top-down globalisation” or the New World Order espoused by world leaders and businessmen in Davos. Poverty, famine, drought, slavery, over or under industrialization: There are many problems facing the world today, and the annual meetings among the world’s foremost business leaders at Davos appears to have not helped remedy them. Some would argue that these meetings further harm world populations by allowing businessmen to gather and conspire to hoard the world’s resources. Indeed, it appears that wealth seems to continue its steady flow and concentration into the hands of a tiny fraction of the world’s population at the expense of the vast majority.
He acknowledged that his father Rahul Bajaj, chairman of the Bajaj Group conglomerate, had been a regular at Davos over the last decades.
India had a huge presence at last year’s Davos, including Sunil Mittal, head of Bharti Enterprises and Azim Premji, chairman of Indian software major Wipro.