India currently has a politically correct relationship with southeast Asia: Datta.

PANAJI: India's 'look east' policy has been the most successful foreign policy in recent years accompanying a commendable improvement and has performed beyond its expectations, opined Sreeradha Datta, director of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata.

Speaking at the International Centre Goa, Dona Paula, on 'India's Look East Policy - Recent Trends', Datta said India is now in a whole new avatar as compared to the 90's.

The Look East policy was a brain child of then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh. And by 2009, the policy had the economic trade agreement in place. Though India established trade ties through the important Indian Ocean link, Datta believes that the policy will also achieve considerable progress if road links are developed.

"This is geographically possible only through the North-East of India. Hence, it is important to be-friend countries like Bangladesh and Myanmar. Although New Delhi has had a vision document for the North-Eastern states, there is a huge gap in its implementation, thus the entire North-East lacks modern infrastructure to facilitate trading activities,"she stated. Datta was implying that Manipur is the focal point and the ancient trade routes used for centuries may be exploited.

"In the early 1990's when India was going through a financial crisis, with the GDP touching 5%, the splintering of USSR also caused a huge loss in terms of economic and security dependence. Thus, India decided that in order to be able to make its own recovery on economic security, it would 'hitch' with the South-East Asian countries; which are known to have survived the global economic crisis" she explained.

Datta added that India's relation has considerably changed over the years and is prompt to claim that India currently has a politically correct relationship with South -East Asia.

"But although India and Bangladesh share the best relation since 1975, Bangladesh is not yet ready to have a walk through border with India and this will further hamper the interests," she elaborated.

While optimistically concluding that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has huge interests in South-East Asia relations as is evident from his first foreign trip to Bhutan and this could be the beginning of the next era of 'The Look East' policy.

Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com