India’s North Eastern Region (hereinafter NER) popularly known as “seven sisters and a brother” is bounded by Eight States – Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura. It has diversified geographical setup as a result it is blessed by enormous richness of natural resources, great water resources, vast potential for hydroelectricity, rich in resources like hydrocarbons, vast experience of fertile farmlands, ideal habitat for horticulture, hub for handicrafts, tourism, and numerous tea estates(Bhatia Rajiv, 2015). However, the region is known to be economically backward and under-developed since independence. The reasons are myriad but political instability, insurgency and lack of good connectivity has been the most important thorns in its path for development. In the early 1990s with the launch of Look East Policy (LEP) ray of hope and vision of development of the region was shown as it was seen as a gateway to the booming economies of the South East Asia. But such hope and vision remained only on paper and then it continued to remain as it was. In 2014 the upgradation of LEP into Act East Policy and in 2017 inviting Japan (the first foreign country) to invest in NER has brought renewed hopes for the region. With this background the current paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the potentials of the NER for its development. The present paper will also discuss the common grounds or the NER offers for developing collaboration between India and Japan towards its development.
KUMAR et al. (Tue,) studied this question.