British PM off to India seeking new relationship

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron goes to India this week targeting a new special relationship with the former jewel in its colonial crown, now one of the world's fastest-growing economies.
Cameron, accompanied by his most senior ministers and bosses from some of Britain's biggest companies, hopes to agree a string of lucrative trade and partnering deals during the visit.
Since taking power in May, Cameron has said he wants British foreign policy to focus more on business in a bid to boost the economy as it emerges from recession facing deep budget cuts to combat record state debt.
"I want to refashion British foreign policy, the Foreign Office, to make us much more focused on the commercial aspects... making sure we are demonstrating Britain is open for business," Cameron said last week.
His coalition government has singled out India as a key partner, saying it wants the two countries to forge a "new special relationship" and backing India for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.
Cameron's finance minister George Osborne, who is joining the trip, wrote in the Sunday Telegraph that this would be the "strongest British delegation to visit India in modern times", including bosses from mobile phone company Vodafone and defence giant BAE Systems.
But some experts question what India has to gain from building closer ties with Britain when other, much bigger powers like the United States and Japan are also courting it.
"The question is, what can we offer India?", Gareth Price, head of the Asia Programme at London foreign affairs think-tank Chatham House, told AFP.
Ties between Britain and India go back a long way.
India was known as the "jewel in the crown" of the British empire until independence in 1947 and up to two million people of Indian origin live in Britain, its largest ethnic minority group.
Bilateral trade between the two countries was worth 11.5 billion pounds (13.7 billion euros, 17.7 billion dollars) last year.
Britain is the most popular business destination in the European Union for Indian companies such as Tata and ICICI Bank -- and the richest man in Britain is an Indian, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.