revised design Courtesy: Gateway House
27 November 2025

Rise of the Davos Competitor

U.S. health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. called the World Economic Forum a “billionaires’ boys club” imposing totalitarian controls. Indeed, since 1971, the elite platform shaped geopolitics. But its Western-centricism kept out the concerns of the rest. This gave rise to alternative forums, which look beyond financial agendas to the perspectives shaping the Global South. Here are 45 of biggest, half of which began just two decades ago.

Courtesy: World Economic Forum/Flickr
9 November 2012

The new Indian hero of 2012

The World Economic Forum on India projected a grim reality with corporates wearing the Non-Resident Indian cloak and reprimanding the government for its policies. After participating in a panel at the Forum, Manjeet Kripalani gives her account of the WEF and the need for new heroes to take charge in India.