Bollywood and tech

There’s a distinct Bollywood-and-tech beat to this morning’s issue, including a look at why rising outsourcing revenues in India should give Egypt and Jordan significant pause — and a sit-down with a top Zoho exec about what drove the SaaS giant to open a UAE data center.

Also on our mind this morning: A squadron of Egyptian Air Force Rafale jets have deployed to the UAE to help defend the nation against Iranian drone strikes, the Emirates’ state news agency WAM reported (worth a click for the images, we promise you). Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed met with the fighter pilots a day after the two walked through an Abu Dhabi mall together.

The UAE and Egypt may have differences on issues like Sudan’s civil war, where they back different factions, but the two have drawn closer and closer together in recent years. The UAE’s massive Ras El Hekma project — dubbed by some as the “eighth emirate” or the “summer emirate” — bailed Egypt out of financial distress, setting the groundwork for a highly successful economic reform program that has so far stood up to fallout from the war in the Gulf. Abu Dhabi’s agriculture investments across Egypt are one of the lynchpins of its food security program, and ties between the UAE and Egyptian business communities are now much deeper than with their counterparts in Saudi.

Riyadh and Abu Dhabi aren’t really on speaking terms, and relations between Egypt and Saudi have been cool for years. With Egyptian jets on the ground in the UAE and Riyadh having reportedly blocked US jets from flying out of Saudi Arabia, it’s hard not to wonder whether Riyadh risks being left out of what looks a lot like an emerging US-UAE-Egypt triangle.

Meanwhile, we’re keeping an eye on what’s going to happen next with the peace proposal ping-pong happening with the US and Iran. Washington rejected Tehran’s latest counter-offer on a peace proposal, raising questions on whether the stalemate will be resolved anytime soon.

The back-and-forth comes as the ceasefire remains fragile — the UAE said it interceptedtwo drones yesterday and a cargo ship was attacked on its way from Abu Dhabi to Qatar. The attacks come after Qatar appears to have pushed its first LNG cargo through the strait since the disruptions began, after reportedly securing Iran’s approval for the shipment to make its way to Pakistan. –Patrick