Aiyar has North-East dreams

JYOTI MALHOTRA

New Delhi, June 20, 2007 : Mani Shankar Aiyar’s missionary spirit to develop the North-East will get its biggest boost yet when he hosts Thai commerce minister Krirk-Krai Jirapaet over the next four days in Agartala, Aizawl and Guwahati.

Consider Aiyar’s double whammy : As the Union minister in charge for the North-Eastern region, Aiyar will be stealing a march on the External Affairs ministry’s much-vaunted ``look east’’ policy, which, for the first time, had Pranab Mukherjee travelling to Shillong over the weekend, en route to Indonesia and Singapore.

Moreover, by pulling off a visit by a foreign minister to the North-East, for the first time in recent memory, Aiyar is showing up all those Union ministers who have repeatedly been turning down Aiyar’s pleas to visit the north-east, even on all-expenses-paid visits.

PMO sources who applauded Aiyar’s north-east initiative, acknowledged that Union ministers had been requested to travel to any one of the north-eastern states, at least once a month, ``so as to end the perceived sense of isolation by the people there.’’

However, with the exception of minister of state for commerce Jairam Ramesh and minister of state for shipping, road transport & highways K H Muniappa – both of whom were in Guwahati and Shillong, respectively, for business summits organized by Aiyar’s ministry – nobody else was interested.

With the Hindi heartland forever obsessed with itself, Aiyar decided to look elsewhere. In Bangkok in March for a conference, he found the Thais more than willing to break new ground in the north-east. After all, it was so much closer to Bangkok than New Delhi.

``India’s `look-east’ policy has benefited the rest of India, but it has hardly had any
impact on the North-East, which should be its first beneficiary. Because it is in north-
east India, that South-East Asia begins,’’ Aiyar told `The Telegraph.’

In fact, Aiyar’s ministry for the development of the north-eastern region (DONER) is now providing the MEA with the bridges to make trans-border connections. After the Thai visit, Aiyar is hoping Russian ambassador Vladimir Trubnikov and Australian high commissioner John McCarthy will also travel to the north-east.

As for the Thai commerce minister, he is in Agartala on Friday with a business delegation that will focus on rubber, bamboo, handlooms and handicraft; on Saturday in Guwahati, centred on power and inland waterways, roads and highways; on Sunday in Shillong, focussing on tourism & hospitality, horticulture and medicinal herbs.

The Thai blitzkrieg, in fact, is perfectly timed. Thai prime minister General Surayud Chulanont is in Delhi early next week, on June 26. By inviting an army general who overthrew the previous PM Thaksin Shinawatra last year, New Delhi’s signalling that ``its look-east is also pragmatic.’’

DONER’s sectoral summits have helped some. Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh has hosted a summit on power, Shillong has been focussed on roads and highways, Sikkim in tourism & hospitality. Praful Patel cancelled a last-minute invitation to attend a summit on civil aviation and Aiyar hopes HRD minister Arjun Sngh will visit Imphal in July.

Clearly, Aiyar is doing to DONER what he did to the petroleum ministry when he was there, that is, give it a profile. Critics say his zeal stems from the fact that he is a former officer of the Indian Foreign Service, and like in petroleum, may have to tone down DONER’s international perspective.

Aiyar says he is concerned about the development of the north-east, both via domestic and foreign direct investment. He points out that the neighbourhood is far more developed and asks why India’s north-east should be left behind.

So when he recently visited Kunming, the rich capital of China’s south-western province of Yunnan in his capacity as minister for youth affairs, Aiyar pushed the Chinese to relook at the North-East.

``There is such geographic proximity with South-West China, that I have come back with the conclusion that I will not rest until Guwahati looks like Kunming and Aizawl looks like Dali,’’ said Aiyar.


ENDS