NEW DELHI: Indian authorities and businesses have expanded cooperation with Dubai during the emirate’s crown prince’s two-day state trip to India.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum arrived in New Delhi on Tuesday for his first official visit, during which he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and members of his Cabinet.

From the capital, he traveled to Mumbai for the Dubai-India Business Forum co-organized by the Dubai Chambers, the Confederation of Indian Industry, and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

“Delighted that his first official visit to India coincides with the 100th anniversary year of the visit of his grandfather His Highness Sheikh Saeed to India,” Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal told the forum’s participants.

“We witnessed the signing of MoUs focusing on future-ready supply chains and modernizing India’s maritime infrastructure … I underlined our deep cultural, economic, and trade ties that have further strengthened in the last decade with high-level engagements between our leadership that (go) beyond the realm of diplomacy.”

India’s economic ties with the UAE, including Dubai, have grown rapidly since the 2022 Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement came into power, eliminating trade barriers, lowering tariffs, and easing business operations.

In 2024, the UAE ranked as India’s third-largest global trade partner, following China and the US, with imports valued at $60.1 billion and exports at $37.8 billion.

In Dubai in particular, India has emerged as a top investor. Last year alone, India’s foreign direct investment into Dubai surged to over $3 billion.

The most populous of the UAE’s seven emirates, Dubai is also home to the majority of India’s 4.3 million diaspora.

“Indian investors form a key part of Dubai’s business landscape, with 72,651 active Indian companies registered as members of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce by the end of March 2025,” Mohammed Ali Rashed Lootah, CEO of Dubai Chambers, said during the Mumbai forum.

“Dubai holds a strategic position for Indian companies as a preferred investment destination due to its unique competitive advantages.”

Venues for cooperation with the emirate were further explored during the business forum in Mumbai, which saw dozens of Dubai business leaders arriving during Sheikh Hamdan’s visit and in which a new agreement between the Dubai Chambers and CII was signed.

“The forum focused on enhancing strategic economic opportunities between the two markets and was attended by more than 200 businesses from both sides. During the forum, many avenues were explored to enhance trade and investment opportunities (and) identify new opportunities to launch new joint ventures and strategic partnerships,” Manish Mohan, CII regional director-international, told Arab News.

“The MoU between CII and Dubai Chambers is significant in trying to see how we can improve and expand business between the Emirate of Dubai and India.”

On the sidelines of Sheikh Hamdan’s visit, India and Dubai also agreed to establish in Dubai the first overseas campuses of the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad and of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.

“This follows the inauguration of the first-ever campus of the IIT in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi last year,” the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement, adding that it also “positions Dubai and the UAE as a key regional and global destination for eminent Indian educational institutions.”

The new 100-bed India-UAE Friendship Hospital will also be established in Dubai to provide affordable healthcare to Indian workers.

“It is also a recognition of the contribution of millions of Indians for the development and growth of Dubai,” the ministry said.

“These initiatives will benefit the 4.3 million-strong Indian diaspora living in the UAE and around 9 million Indian diaspora in the Gulf region.”

NEW DELHI: Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him.
India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organization, and of aiding planning the attacks. Pakistan has always denied official complicity.
US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world.”
The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blames the LeT group — as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan — for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, when 10 gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital.
India accuses Rana of helping his long-term friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslims around the globe.
But India maintains Rana is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attacks along with the convicted Headley — and the authorities have welcomed his expected extradition.
In February, Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state which includes the megacity Mumbai, said that “finally, the long wait is over and justice will be done.”
Devika Rotawan, a survivor of the Mumbai attacks, said she believed the extradition of Rana would be a “big win for India.”
“I will never be able to forget the attack,” she told broadcaster NDTV on Wednesday.
Counterterrorism experts however suggest Rana’s involvement was peripheral compared to Headley, a US citizen, who India also wants extradited.
“They gave us a small fish but kept David Headley, so the essential outcome is going to be symbolic,” said Ajay Sahni, head of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based think tank.
Rana knew Headley, 64, from their days together at boarding school in Pakistan.
Headley, who testified as a government witness at Rana’s trial, said he had used his friend’s Chicago-based immigration services firm as a cover to scout targets in India, by opening a branch in Mumbai.
Rana has said he visited Mumbai ahead of the attacks — and stayed at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel that would become the epicenter of the bloody siege — but denied involvement in the conspiracy.
Sahni said that more than 16 years after the attacks, Rana’s extradition is of “historical importance” rather than a source of any “live intelligence.”
But he added that handing him over has “a chilling effect” on others abroad who India seeks to put on trial.