Dubai: India may hold whip hand in this power game

Dubai may soon find itself a satellite not of its Abu Dhabi capital but of India. The biggest merchants in Dubai are Indian — they run the gold market, even the bookshops in Sheikh Mohamed's playpen — and west India is only two hours' flying time away. In fact, until 1962 — and you have to be an oldie to understand the emirates' economic world — the Indian rupee was the currency for most of the Gulf, including even Kuwait.