As the world’s business and thought leaders, comprising over 2,500 participants from 88 countries, converges on this sleepy ski resort, some three hours from Zurich, for the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008, its pretty much a continuation of the India Everywhere theme this year too at Davos, albeit informally.

To put matters in perspective, this year’s annual meeting is witnessing 1,370 chief executives and chairpersons from the world’s leading companies, the highest ever since the WEF was launched in 1971.

A strong contingent of public leaders and ministers, 60 CEOs and several breakfasts and receptions aside of the basic programme of the annual meeting will mark the presence of the Indian contingent this year.

Ever since Rahul Bajaj started participating in the conglomeration of business leaders way back in 1979, the annual meeting, now in its 38 th year, is today as much about the emergence of India as an economy to reckon with as anything else.

Today, the Forum has over 1000 companies as members, while there is the Global Growth Companies (GGC) initiative which is also gaining momentum. GGC is a forum of those companies which have not yet made it to the Forum, but are emerging companies which are leaders of tomorrow. Already, GGC aims for 1000 members, and 14 emerging Indian companies are already a part of GGC, a CII official said. CII is coordinating the Indian contingent at Davos. The GGC meets at Dalian, China, also known as the Summer Davos.

This year at Davos, commerce and industries minister Kamal Nath kicks off the India networking with a breakfast on Wednesday, while a reception the same evening will see Nath, finance minister P Chidambaram, and Praful Patel in attendance. Then there are breakfast sessions on ?Making India a Financial Centre?, another hosted by the Boston Consulting Group and breakfasts and receptions hosted by Infosys, TCS, Satyam Computer and Wipro. Clearly, India has begun asserting itself even more at Davos since the ?India Everywhere? initiative in 2006.

W Lee Howell, senior director at WEF and head of Asia and Head of Global Agenda, who is pretty much the architect of this year’s meeting at Davos sums it up perfectly. ?There was a time a few years ago when the global community used to ask, hey, what do the Americans think about this important issue. Today, it’s pretty much what the Indians and Chinese think. The equations are changing.?

Howell, who succeeds the redoubtable Collette Mathur to the position, has taken charge at a time when India is clearly the preferred flavour at Davos. Explaining the theme of this year’s conference, ?The Power of Collaborative Innovation?, Howell explains that there is a need for collaboration as much as there is for innovation. Whether it is climate change, or the Middle East conflict, we need innovation and we need collaboration between the stakeholders even as we innovate. Hence, the theme is relevant.?

At the traditional Raclette Dinner hosted for the Indian contingent by the WEF and CII on Tuesday night, the top Indian CEOs turned up in full strength. From YC Deveshwar to Prakash Hinduja, KP Singh, Nandan Nilekani to, of course, Rahul Bajaj, the entire Indian business community, together with commerce minister Kamal Nath, paid glowing tributes to the work done by Mathur in building the Indian community in Davos. The underlying theme was clear: here was a confident India, despite global turmoil, ready to take on the world. The body language was unmistakeable. Clearly, the time for India is now. Davos is just an example.