India Symposium, is an annually recurring conference which aims at fostering economic and social relations between India and Europe.India Symposium, 2013 was the world’s most important gathering of CEOs, MDs, President’s, Chairman’s, Founder’s and  Director’s  as speakers from  world’s largest and prestigious companies.

The conference was organized on September 27^th  2013 at Zurich and was focused on the topic  “A Global market overview and opportunities in India”. SMA Legal was invited to this prestigious conference which was attended by the “whose who” of Indian, German, Swiss and Austrian industry.

The Introductory and special speech was delivered by Dr. Sigu Muringaseril, Founder & Chairman, India Symposium and H.E. Dr. Linus von Castelmur, Ambassador of Switzerland to India, Embassy of Switzerland.

Some of the other speakers included

·         Lord Baron Karan Bilimoria, Founder & Chairman, Cobra Beer

·         Ashish Chauhan, Managing Director & CEO, Bombay Stock Exchange

·         Dr. Karl-Ulrich Köhler, Managing Director & CEO, Tata Steel Europe

·         Namrata Kaul, Managing Director, Deutsche Bank

·         Rajesh Nambiar, General Manager, IBM

·         David Ross, SVP Operations – ME, India and Africa, FedEx

·         Sumeet Aggarwal, General Manager, Office of the Executive Chairman, Fortis Healthcare

·        Sutanu Sinha, Chief Executive, Institute of Company Secretaries of India

·         Vikas Anand, Chief Operating Officer, DHL Supply Chain – India

·         Ramkumar Narayanan, General Manager & Head PDCi, eBay India

·        Ashish Arondekar, Head of Banking & Financial Services, Cognizant Switzerland

·         Pramod Arora, Group President, PVR Cinemas

This one-day conference comprised of presentations, panel discussions and analyst sessions. The day was designed to understand the various challenges at the micro economy and corporate level in India as well as in Europe. Attendees discovered what needs to be done by the corporate sectors in social development such as gender equality, work life balance and changing the value system.

The sessions were on ‘National and Translation Issues’, ‘Banking, Financial Services & Insurance’, ‘Lack of and Inefficiencies in Infrastructure which Impede Growth’, Knowledge & New Economics, ‘Cost Effective Health Care Delivery in India’ and ‘Engineering Manufacturing’. A detailed discussion was held on the difficulties and complexities for foreign companies to get success in the Indian market. Speakers spoke, precisely and candidly, on the topic of the actual state and current trends in the Indian financial services and corporate sectors.

The next India Symposium is slated for the 26^th of September 2014 in Zurich.