His Majesty King Hamad leaves today on an official state visit to India at the invitation of Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.

He will hold talks with President Mukherjee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and senior officials on historical relations bonding the two countries and ways of bolstering them and opening up new horizons of bilateral co-operation, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

Latest regional and global developments and issues of mutual concern will also be discussed.

His Majesty is also scheduled to visit Mumbai where the Confederation of Indian Industry will host a meeting of the Bahrain-India Business Forum tomorrow.

Meanwhile, ministers from Kerala state, which has a sizeable Malayalee community in Bahrain, have expressed keenness to meet His Majesty.

Kerala has long been associated with Bahrain as a large number of Keralites are settled in the kingdom, said Minister of State for Culture and Diaspora K C Joseph.

Of the 350,000 Indians in Bahrain, more than 100,000 are from Kerala. - TradeArabia News Service