Davos is a talk show: It's voluble but not weighty

The World Economic Forum's annual gathering has been losing both weight and appeal in a sharply divided world. Today, its lofty aims represent the triumph of hope over experience

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The world’s biggest talk show is on: the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 54th Annual Meeting at Davos began this Monday and ends on Friday. As in the past, this year too, the WEF conclave in the Swiss skiing resort, where they have been held for half a century, is being attended by a veritable who’s-who of business, politics and media. The WEF website says more than 300 public figures will participate, including more than 60 heads of state and government, together with an estimated 1,600 business leaders, apart from chiefs of multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World Trade Organization, etc. But a careful perusal of the list of attendees shows that the number of notable absentees has grown over the years. Sure, business leaders still flock to Davos, but important politicians, who once made a beeline for it and without whom grandiose ideas of global cooperation remain a pipe-dream, are noticeably absent. Among the G7, only France and the EU are represented this year, the former by President Emmanuel Mac