There is also likely to be a major cultural agreement involving museums, 'The Observer' reported on Sunday.

Cameron is taking with him seven Cabinet ministers and a huge trade delegation, including representatives from BAE as well as from Rolls-Royce, Standard Chartered Bank, construction group Balfour Beatty and the British Museum.

BAE has set up joint ventures with the state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics in Bangalore. The Indian group makes BAE's Hawk trainer aircraft under licence.

Dick Olver, BAE's Chairman, said British business needed to think about India becoming as important a trading partner as America. "We need to build a second special relationship."

According to the Sunday Telegraph, BAE Systems will announce a 500 million-pound deal to build 57 Hawk trainer jets in collaboration with their Indian partners HAL near Bangalore, as a centrepiece of Cameron's visit.

Cameron, who will first fly to Bangalore, the hub of "infotech" and innovation, will visit along with Business Secretary Vince Cable and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker the headquarters of Infosys, the cutting edge IT firm based in the city.

Cameron is expected to make a keynote speech there calling for an "aspirational partnership" between Britain and India.

George Osborne, the Chancellor of Exchequer, will visit Mumbai, the financial capital of India, while David Willetts, the Universities and Science Minister, will travel to Chennai to promote university tie-ups. Meanwhile, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture and Sport Secretary, will go to Delhi, which is hosting the Commonwealth Games in

October.

In Mumbai, Osborne will ring the bell to open the day's trading to the headquarters of top computer software

companies.

On Thursday, Cameron will be accorded a ceremonial reception in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi. Besides holding talks with his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh, Cameron is scheduled to meet Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

Discussions about the growing threat of LeT, the Pakistan-based terrorist group behind the Mumbai attacks in 2008, will be on the agenda of meetings between British Foreign Secretary William Hague and India's security chiefs.

Cameron and Singh will announce a new forum of top British and Indian chief executives to explore how to dismantle regulatory barriers to trade and make recommendations to their governments. "It will make a significant impact", said Commerce Minister Anand Sharma.

"When the captains of Industry meet in an institutionalised forum, with the composition decided at the highest level, it's surely a major step forward. We have seen t can make a difference with the United States, Russia and France," he said.

Sharma said his government is equally concerned about Cameron's plans to restrict student and other visas for non-EU nationals. "(These) immigration policies would affect adversely the professionals, Indian doctors, engineers and nurses who have made a notable contribution to the UK economy," he said.

The new rules could also hamper Indian IT professionals and other executives, many of whom use London as a hub for doing business in Europe. "It could have an adverse impact, that's why I've raised it. I've asked the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary to intervene so it won't hurt the growing economic engagement," Sharma said.

The British manufacturers accompanying Cameron are not just looking for export orders. In many sectors, companies are linking up with local firms in long-term joint ventures that would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

The British Prime Minister wants to secure a special relationship with the emerging superpower. In a letter to the delegation, he argued that the visit is about "laying the foundations of an enhanced relationship" between the two countries for decades to come.

"For our part, government ministers on this trip will be stressing the importance of trade and demonstrating to our Indian counterparts how Britain is open for business again. But you have a crucial role too. In the meetings you have, the delegations you meet, places you visit, you can showcase the ingenuity and creativity our country has to offer. Of course, this task is not for business alone. That's why I am so pleased that representatives from the worlds of sports, culture and academia will also be joining us."

Barry Gardiner, the Labour MP who chairs the all-party UK-India trade and investment group, said India was embarking on a huge infrastructure programme.

That could mean opportunities for British industry, "but we have to be careful that we don't end up seeing what has happened in America, where companies have been bought out by Chinese sovereign wealth funds."

In contrast to the Labour regimes of Tony Blair and Gordan Brown, Cameron of Conservative party and Deputy Premier Nick Clegg of Lib Dems consciously gave India higher priority than China, the other fast growing economy of Asia.

It is, therefore, no surprise that India will be the focus of Cameron's first long-haul tour. It promises to be a diplomatic tour de force which, despite all the talk of austerity and cuts, will dwarf anything attempted during the Labour era, 'The Sunday Times' wrote.

Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, said British politicians had traditionally gone to India with the wrong attitude.

Cable, whose first wife was an Indian, said: "In the past the British have talked about history and sentiment - and then gone there and whinged about the difficulties of exporting whisky. It's become a negative stereotype of the way the British relate to India."

"The last time I was there was two years ago on a Lib Dem mission to India. I was just staggered how much things had moved. The previous time was 2001, just after my wife died. Itook my younger son on a pilgrimage. It was an extra-ordinary visit. It rekindled my will to live," he recalled.

Vikas Pota, Author of India Inc: How India's Top Ten Entrepreneurs Are Winning Globally, said "Under Tony Blair, the British government led the charge to bring India to the top table. As cheerleader, Blair did the unthinkable; he changed the weather, the way India was talked about by stating his support for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council for India.

"Immediately, you saw India being invited to G8 meetings, where the world's richest nations got together to decide the future course of global events. Like a new student in an old school, India observed attentively and said little.

"However, as time has progressed; and as events have benefited India, Manmohan Singh is no longer the new student. He has an edge over Cameron. His experience in dealing with global finance and economics is proving to be a major strength for India. Not only is India at the top table, but it's …offering solutions to global problems, like it has with the debate around the imposition of a global bank levy."

He said "the visit offers a defining opportunity for Cameron, the type that comes along once in a while and hope he seizes it."

Several Indian and British business leaders said the real need for intervention was in the promotion of British investment in Indian infrastructure projects and support for British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), many of which back away from "Indian bureaucracy and corruption," the Sunday Telegraph reported.

"The biggest problems are faced by SMEs," said Dheeraj Hinduja, Chairman of Ashok Leyland heavy vehicles, and a scion of the London-based billionaire Hinduja family.

"The number of these operations are substantial and there are returns of 12 per cent in India. The major corporates already have strategies for entering India but not the SMEs."

Gopichand Hinduja, co-chairman of the Hinduja Group, said: "There is a sense that doing business in India is not easy, but you need to be in it for the long haul, you have to hold on and be committed."

He said that India had opened up to foreign investment at a faster rate than either the United States or the European Union and that Britain and India could collaborate on infrastructure projects, power generation, renewable energy, civilian nuclear power, education, science and information technology.

Legal and professional services could open up too, if the same rights were granted to Indian firms operating in the UK.

"With certain professional bodies, legal and accounting, they're talking to each other, but for this to move forward there must be reciprocal recognition of professional qualifications," Anand Sharma said.