India's biggest economic summit opens

BusinessWeek reports that " Hundreds of executives and policy makers from around the world gathered Sunday to explore business opportunities in India, one of the world's fastest-growing economies that is increasingly opening up to foreign competition and investment.The three-day India Economic Summit comes at a time when Foreign investors have been increasingly looking to India as its booming economy -- which has been expanding at an annual rate of more than 7 percent in recent years -- offers promising returns on capital".

Global experts will join Indian policy makers at the summit to discuss what should be done to make the growth process more inclusive in order to prevent a social and political backlash in the face of widening economic disparities, said Gay Davis, an expert with the Geneva-based World Economic Forum that hosted the annual meeting.A key focus of the summit would be how India could sustain annual economic growth of 8 percent or more in a way that benefits people across all sections of the society, Davis said.The obvious challenges include infrastructure bottlenecks, including a lack of enough schools and hospitals needed to provide an educated and healthy work force, he said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister P. Chidambaram will address the summit. More than 600 participants from nearly three dozen countries are attending.

The Hindu adds "Unveiling the roadmap for reforms to achieve eight per cent growth, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Sunday announced that more sectors would be opened up to foreign direct investment (FDI) while public investment would be increased in critical sectors such as agriculture and infrastructure.The FM admitted that the Key to sustaining higher GDP growth is larger investment in infrastructure".

But how much of that is possible with the Left being an ally ? Keep your fingers crossed .