Introduction:

Act East Policy of the Central Government focusses on promotion of economic cooperation, cultural ties, and develops strategic relationship with countries in the Asia-Pacific region through continuous engagement bilateral regional and multilateral levels thereby providing enhanced connectivity to the states of North Eastern region. In this connection the Government of Assam perceives a great opportunity to move away from landlockedness and peripheral location of the North Eastern region to being a regional focal point of economic and cultural integration of India with countries of South, East, and South East Asia. Therefore, the Act East Policy Affairs Department has been set up in 2017 to leverage the locational advantage of the State extricated by the Act East Policy in order to engender all round development of the State in conjunction with other North Eastern States.

Act East Policy in the Background of North Eastern Region:

India's The North Eastern Region of India had been suffering an unfortunate geographical isolation and perceived psychological alienation from the rest of the country as a consequence of partition and the irrational drawing of the Radcliffe Line, when thanks to the path-breaking vision of our Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji the decades old Look East Policy was metamorphosed into the more proactive Act East Policy in 2014 – thereby providing the region with a unique opportunity to reinvent itself as the hub of the country’s emerging relations with her eastern neighbours.In this regard, the Hon’ble Prime Minister has not only designated ‘Act East’ Policy as a key component of his Government’s Foreign Policy, but also explicitly mentioned that North-East India would play an important role in that ‘Act East’ Policy.