TODAY -
India's Wild East unprepared for new Myanmar
(Reuters) | Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:10am IST | MOREH :
"Myanmar is India's only bridge to Southeast Asia," Myo Myint, Myanmar's deputy foreign minister, told Reuters last week at a meeting of Southeast Asian diplomats in New Delhi to look at ways to speed up road, rail and telecoms connections with India. "India needs to come forward with assistance." But despite a recent flurry of high-level visits between the two countries, India appears ill-placed on the ground to exploit Myanmar's opening.
Reuters journalists on a recent trip to the Myanmar-India border in Manipur found a region where rebel groups deeply influence politics and business. Opium poppies are grown openly. Cross-border gun-running remains big business.
Manipur and the three other Indian states sharing the 1,640- km (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar were supposed to be India's "Gateway to the East". Instead, the area has become India's Wild East.--
The sleepy border town of Moreh had dreams of being a major international trading centre, a key station on the ambitious Trans-Asia Railway that will enable containers from East and Southeast Asia to travel overland across India to Europe. But work on the $900 million, 125 km (77 mile) stretch of the railway is already two years behind schedule and has only progressed a short distance. Costs are soaring.
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* This Post is uploaded on February 22, 2012
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