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The end of the Cold War and economic liberalization in India marked a new turn in Indian diplomacy. The ‘Look East’ policy promulgated in the early 1990s entailed several strategic and economic initiatives aimed at deepening India’s ties with Southeast Asia, which had been neglected earlier. Despite the launch of the program a decade and a half ago, India’s involvement with the region proved to be fitful. With the ‘Act East’ initiative, which was launched in 2014, there appears to be a renewed emphasis on forging working relationships with various states in the region.

This volume, part of the Oxford International Relations in South Asia series, presents an overarching assessment of the contents, successes, and failures of India’s Southeast Asia policy, with important pointers to how this relationship could be steered in the future. The contributors to the volume dwell on three critical areas-trade, security, and environment-and outline the existing ties of India’s northeast with Southeast Asia and the prospects of their expansion.

Contents: Introduction: India and Southeast Asia/Karen Stoll Farrell and Sumit Ganguly. I. Security: 1. India and the East: Connectivity begins at home/David J. Karl. 2. ASEAN–India cooperation in counterterrorism: evolution and future/Julio S. Amador III. 3. India’s engagement with Myanmar: Regional security implications of acting east slowly/Jonah Blank. 4. The Indo-Myanmar border and India’s security problems in the east/Bertil Lintner. 5. Making people’s voices count: Northeast India and its neighbourhood/Sanjoy Hazarika. II. Trade: 6. India and the potential of trade East /Rani D. Mullen. 7. India and RCEP: challenges and opportunities of opening up the farm/food sector/Surupa Gupta. 8. Motor vehicle movement and standards between Bangladesh and India: regional connectivity and trade/Bipul Chatterjee and Prithviraj Nath. III. Environment: 9. Regional integration and its discontents: the case of transboundary water sharing/Douglas P. Hill. 10. Governance, connectivity and knowledge transparency in the Brahmaputra Basin/Kelly D. Alley. 11. Pulses against volumes: transboundary rivers and Pan-Asian connectivity/Rohan D’Souza. Index.