"Unbelievable", "embarrassing" even "dangerous" are some of the words the financial elite gathered at the World Economic Forum conference in the Swiss resort of Davos have been using to describe US Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday that initial talks in Geneva involving the Syrian government and opposition groups would be "proximity talks", not a face-to-face meeting of participants.

A day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dismissed one of the Congress party's demands on the Goods and Services Tax as "preposterous", senior Congress leader Kamal Nath told NDTV's Vikram Chandra in an interview at Davos that the differences between the two sides "can be ironed out."