Myanmar government officials in Naypyitaw said Shwe is a guest of Indian President Pratibha Patil. He will also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The officials didn't explain the "religious" nature of the visit but said Shwe will also have discussions on economic cooperation and security concerns along Myanmar's 900-mile frontier with India.

Shwe also is to visit the city of Hyderabad for information technology and pharmaceutical factory tours, two sectors for which Myanmar is looking for development assistance.

On the economic front, Indian oil and gas companies are concerned about their lack of access to natural gas in Myanmar's Arakan province.

"That is why we invested in some of the blocs there. But all the Arakan gas is now going to China," Ashok Das, a retired official of the state-sponsored Oil India company, said.

Shwe heads the military's governing State Peace and Development Council, but the country is going to the polls on an as yet unspecified date later this year for the first time in 20 years.

Myanmar, formerly called Burma, was a British colony with close economic ties to India prior to independence in 1948 but has been under military rule since 1962. Good relations with Myanmar are seen by successive governments in New Delhi as an important counterbalance to a growing Chinese influence, both military and economic, in Southeast Asia.

India, the world's largest democratic country, has refrained from criticizing Myanmar over many issues, including the controversial upcoming election. Myanmar's new constitution assures the military can control an elected legislature through its veto power in the Senate, where one-quarter of the seats are to be appointed military people.

Western governments and human rights groups have said whatever the election results, the process is tainted. The central problem is the election laws enacted by Myanmar's generals earlier this year.

The laws appear to be an attempt to stop participation by various pro-democracy leaders, including the National League for Democracy and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who remains under house detention in Myanmar's former capital Yangon.

Last month, world leaders reiterated calls for Myanmar to release democracy leader Suu Kyi, 65, and the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Messages of support from around the world were posted on Facebook and other social networking Web sites. Among international leaders who called for Suu Kyi's release were U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. President Barack Obama.

Public opinion in India is more critical of Myanmar's lack of democracy than the government, which has steered clear of condemning the generals over their forthcoming elections. New Delhi prefers pragmatic, direct bilateral engagement with Myanmar to solve problems, including a persistent issue over drugs and gun-running across the common border.

In New Delhi in February, Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh told an internal security conference that the almost unchecked cross-border movement of Indian insurgent groups and the continued existence of their camps in Myanmar was a major threat top the region.

The frontier touches the restive Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram. Naga armed groups, especially the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang, retain strong affinities with similarly armed Kachin tribes in Myanmar.

A strengthened border, including a proposed fence along its entirety, is in the generals' favor because of their own problems with rebels.

In March, a Myanmar ethnic rebel group warned the military that clashes are inevitable in the run-up to a national election.

The head of the Karen National Union, the political wing of the Karen National Liberation Army, joined the call by opposition groups to boycott the election and called for western governments not to recognize the results.

Zipporah Sein, head of the KNU, said ethnic minorities shouldn't vote because Myanmar's 2008 constitution doesn't recognize ethnic diversity.

She said the KNLA would fight any attempt by the ruling generals to force local people to either join or form border guard militia that have been set up by the generals in some remote areas.

"They then adopt regime-style policies and tactics toward the local population, committing the same atrocities as the army, such as forced displacement, rape, killing and more," she said.

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