📌 Background & Key Features
- Look East (1991): Born out of necessity — loss of the USSR as strategic anchor and the 1991 BoP crisis pushed India to engage booming East/Southeast Asian economies for trade and investment.
- Act East (2014): An upgrade widening scope from pure economics to strategic, security and cultural engagement, and expanding the canvas from ASEAN to the wider Indo-Pacific.
- Pillars: Trade & connectivity (AITIGA, India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Project), strategic/security cooperation (naval exercises, Quad, defence exports), and people-to-people ties (scholarships, tourism years).
- Institutional architecture: ASEAN-India Summits, East Asia Summit, ADMM-Plus, BIMSTEC, Mekong-Ganga Cooperation, Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (2019).
📋 Quick Facts
| Look East launched | 1991-92, PM P.V. Narasimha Rao (post-USSR collapse, economic reforms) |
| Act East announced | 13 November 2014, 9th East Asia Summit, Nay Pyi Daw, Myanmar |
| 2026 theme | ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation |
📊 Evolution from Look East (1991) to Act East (2014) and beyond
📰 Current Affairs Linkage (2025-26)
- 2025 marked ~11 years of Act East; at the 22nd ASEAN-India Summit (Kuala Lumpur, Oct 2025) India announced 2026 as the ASEAN-India Year of Maritime Cooperation backed by a 2026-2030 Plan of Action.
- Trade imbalance concern: India’s ASEAN trade deficit has widened from ~$7.5 bn (2011) to over $44 bn, driving the ongoing AITIGA review (ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement) to fix rules-of-origin misuse and non-tariff barriers.
- Connectivity bottlenecks persist: the Kaladan Multi-Modal Project's cost has ballooned roughly six-fold from original estimates; the India-Myanmar-Thailand Highway remains incomplete due to insurgency in Myanmar.
- Act East has visibly matured from an economic to a security-first phase — Malabar exercises, defence exports (BrahMos to Philippines), and Quad coordination now sit alongside trade diplomacy.
