Global biz leaders for Amritavarsham50

Kochi is gearing up for the Amritavarsham50 celebrations, an international congregation that would involve representatives from all 191 UN member countries.

To be held from September 24 to 27 at the International Stadium, the event commemorates the Golden Jubilee birthday celebrations of Mata Amritanandamayi, Kerala's most famous spiritual leader, popularly known as Amma.

The programme will be attended by the Indian President, vice-president, deputy prime minister, and business leaders, opinion makers, celebrities and millions of devotees from throughout India and the world.

The theme of the programme is Embracing the World for Peace and Harmony.

The highlight of the four-day mega event will be a two-day summit (on September 26 and 27) of a highly select group of top chief executive officers and business leaders from around the world.

Giving details about the CEO summit, Swami Amritaswarupananda, chairperson of the international organising committee, said it would be presided over by the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, in the presence of Amma.

A highly select group of top CEOs and business leaders from around the world would attend the summit to discuss how to transform India into an economically secure, spiritually strong global leader among nations.

The summit aims to bring together the following three forces in a synergistic manner so as to lay out a plan for India to be fully developed by 2020, while preserving its rich cultural heritage and respect for human values.

The prospective plan includes the development of a world-class infrastructure and transformation of the people into leaders.

These objectives are two sides of the same coin for achieving India 2020 goals.

• A set of Indian entrepreneurs and business leaders who are considered possibly the most successful at the global level.
• A President who is sharply focused on targeting national resources towards a quantum rise in the standard of living of the masses.
• Amma, who is transforming entire communities by her example of selfless service and love for all people.
• Maintaining that India today is on the brink of economic and technological take-off, a spokesperson Swami Dhyanamrita Chaitanya said, "It is an unprecedented opportunity in the history of India, in that she has the said three powerful forces that, by unified vision and action, can successfully propel India into the orbit of developed nations by 2020."

Among the participating CEOs are Mukesh Ambani (Reliance Industries Ltd), S P Hinduja (Hinduja Group), S Ramadorai (TCS), A Ramakrishna (Larsen & Toubro), D Shibulal (Infosys Technologis), M S Ramachandran (Indian Oil Corporation), Rajan Mittal (Bharti Televentures) and Rajiv Chandrasekhar (BPL) from within the country.

And from the US, there would be BV Jagadeesh (Netscaler), Sabeer Bhatia (Hotmail), Desh Deshpande (Sycamore), Prem Jain (Cisco), Kanwal Rekhi (Ensim), C K Prahalad (management guru), S Somasegar, (Microsoft), Vyomesh Joshi (HP), Rajiv Dutta (eBay) and Larry Pressler (US Senator), among others.