Purvodaya in focus with PM Modi's push for eastern India's development

From Bengal to Assam, Modi's eastern outreach gathers pace as Guwahati prepares to host the landmark India-Japan summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in West Bengal over the weekend, and is slated to be in Assam on July 1, where he will hold the India-Japan annual summit talks with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi, in Guwahati. Takaichi will lead a high-powered delegation of executives from over 50 Japanese companies and organisations, including automobile giant Suzuki Motor’s President Toshihiro Suzuki. This is the first instance of the India-Japan annual summit, or any other similarly high-profile bilateral summit, taking place in the northeast. 

The two sides will ink agreements across sectors such as semiconductors, critical minerals, and green energy. Assam’s Morigaon district is where India’s first indigenous semiconductor facility led by Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test is located. 

The summit in Assam aligns with the then Japanese PM Fumio Kishida’s strategic plan, which he discussed in a 2023 speech at New Delhi’s Indian Council for World Affairs. Kishida advocated building an industrial value chain connecting India’s northeast, Bay of Bengal, and the Indo-Pacific. 

“The Northeast India, which is surrounded by land, still has unexploited economic potential. Viewing Bangladesh and other areas to the south as a single economic zone, we will promote the Bay of Bengal-Northeast India industrial value chain concept in cooperation with India and Bangladesh to foster the growth of the entire region,” he said. 

The PM’s visits to the eastern states are part of the governme­nt’s ‘Purvodaya’ vision. Barring Jharkhand and Mizoram, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance has governments in most states in India’s east and northeast. 

In a letter to Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari on the occasion of ‘Paschimbanga Divas’ or West Bengal Day on Saturday, Modi said the Centre will support the state in all ways possible. 

Addressing a public meeting at Rairangpur in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj on Saturday after unveiling projects worth over ₹47,600 crore, Modi said the Centre’s vision was to develop the country through the development of eastern India. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is also on a visit to the north-eastern states, and chaired a seminar in Meghalaya’s capital Shillong on Friday on ‘leveraging externally aided projects (EAPs)’.