Good afternoon and welcome to news explained.

The World Economic Forum’s online Davos Agenda Summit is underway and will see top global leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, speak on the state of the world over the next five days.

There would be 15 special addresses from G20 heads of state and government and international organisations during the summit that will continue till January 29.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will deliver his address on Thursday.

The WEF annual meeting for 2021 will be held during May 13-16 in Singapore, with the high-profile summit to return to Davos in 2022.

How may people are likely to attend the online summit?

The Davos Agenda Summit will see more than 1,000 global leaders, including heads of state and government, CEOs and chairmen of big companies, heads of multilateral organisations as also members of academia and civil society, discuss economic, environmental, social and technological challenges following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Major speakers include Christine Lagarde, Bill Gates, Punit Renjen of Deloitte, Brian T Moynihan of Bank of America, Al Gore, Ishaan Tharoor, KT Rama Rao and many others.

Indians speakers at the Davos Agenda Summit: Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and Petroleum and Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, as also business leaders such as Anand Mahindra, Salil Parekh and Shobana Kamineni would be among other speakers from India.

The list of registered participants also include Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Smriti Irani and Piyush Goyal, along with top business leaders such as Mukesh Ambani, Gautam Adani, Ravi Ruia, Rishad Premji, Pawan Munjal and many others.

The WEF’s Davos 2020 summit was the last major global event that took place before almost the entire world got locked down due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

What are the objectives of the summit: According to WEF, The conclusions from the Davos Agenda week will feed into task forces working on global issues for the upcoming Special Annual Meeting in Singapore.