Since Prime Minister Modi took over the reins of governance in May 2014, he has been visiting the North Eastern states and spending time here. Having familiarised himself with the problems of each of the eight states, Modi had directed his ministers to not only make flying visits to the states but to also spend time there. Home Minister Raj Nath Singh had visited Nathu La the border between Sikkim and China last month and convened meetings with different agencies to speed up infrastructure development such as roads and air links in the border state. The North Eastern region shares 96% of its borders with foreign nations and only about 4% with India. It makes sense to build a system of communication networks with these neighbouring countries for trade and commerce. In 1991 India came up with a foreign policy for building trade relations with the countries of South East Asia. For nearly two decades the Look East Policy has become only a slogan. Prime Minister Modi wanted to see more action on this front and renamed it the Act East Policy thereby making India’s relations with the East Asian neighbours a foreign policy priority.
From the very beginning the Modi government made it clear that India forge strategic partnerships with ASEAN countries and with Vietnam and Japan in particular. This Policy requires that communication bottlenecks between the North Eastern states and the neighbouring South East Asian countries, namely Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Phillipines, Laos, Vietnam et al are removed and old trade routes rejuvenated. Home Minister Raj Nath Singh visited Mizoram this week to oversee the security aspects of the border between that state and Myanmar as it is also a regular route used by militants of the North East. Besides, the Kaladan multi-modal Transit project has been hanging fire for nearly two decades. The Modi Government wants to see it through. Apart from trade and commerce, the Project is important in ensuring India’s political and military interests in the region rivalling China. Kaladan Multi-modal Transit Transport Project intends to revive the river transport route up to Paletwa and build a 129-km-long two-lane highway (NH-502A) through the hilly terrains of Myanmar to connect NH-54 at Lawngtlai in Mizoram. This would reduce the distance from Kolkata to Aizwal by less than half from the existing 1,550 km. Such communications projects are integral for land-locked states like Mizoram.