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Mukesh Ambani, Mahindra among those who give WEF a miss

January 24, 2015 17:15 IST

As the WEF summit draws to a close on Saturday, a few big names from India including Mukesh Ambani and Anand Mahindra were missing in action while Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Jordan's King Abdullah II were among global leaders who cancelled their trips at the last moment.

Jordan's King was scheduled to give a special address on Friday but it got cancelled because of the sudden death of Saudi's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif could not attend the meeting due to the fuel crisis back home.

From India, there were quite a few notable absentees. Mahindra Group's Anand Mahindra, a regular at Davos, as well as Reliance Industries' Mukesh Ambani, this year whose name was in the list of participants, did not attend this year's annual meet.

Bajaj Group's Rahul Bajaj, however, came for his 35th WEF Annual Meeting after giving it a miss last year.

Among global business leaders, South African major Eskom's top executive Tshediso Matona cancelled his participation.

Indian corporate leaders who attended the annual jamboree of the rich and powerful include Chanda Kochhar (ICICI Bank) Arundhati Bhattacharya (SBI), Naresh Goyal (Jet Airways), Anil Agarwal (Vedanta Group), Sajjan Jindal (JSW Steel), Naveen Jindal (JSPL), Sunil Mittal and Rajan Mittal (both from Bharti Group).

N Chandrasekaran (TCS), C P Gurnani (Tech Mahindra), Udak Kotak (Kotak Group) and Prashant Ruia (Essar Group) also attended the meet.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley left this morning while Coal and Power Minister Piyush Goyal left last night. Many business leaders are scheduled to leave later today and others will leave tomorrow.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and his Maharashtra counterpart Devendra Fadnavis attended the meet.

With as many as 120 registered participants, the Indian presence is the fifth largest at the ongoing WEF Annual Meeting in this ski resort town on slopes of the Swiss Alps.

The annual jamboree, which has witnessed participations of thousands of people, including heads of states, government officials and corporate leaders will end today. 

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