In a busy shopping area of New Delhi - businesses line the streets catering to Afghans who have come to India for medical treatment, work or tourism.Afghan Saeed Abdullah has seen the tight Afghan-Indian relationship up close.The Herat resident, in India for his father’s surgery, saw firsthand the benefits of Indian investment in Afghanistan as a worker on the 218-km long Delaram-Zaranj highway in Nimroz province - a $150 million project funded by India.“It was three years ago. I worked with them and they built a road and it was very good," he recalled. "And they have invested so much money, I have seen.”India has provided more than $2 billion in development aid to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.Analysts here in New Delhi say this kind of assistance and investment should continue not only to ensure a stable Afghanistan, but to ensure a stable region.Delhi Policy Group Director Radha Kumar says in light of previous attacks on Indian interests both in and outside of Afghanistan,New Delhi cannot afford to walk away from the war-torn country.“An escalation of efforts to target us would be, in my opinion, an almost inevitable corollary of our departure," she said."So the presence is very much required, from purely a security point of view.”
