Amit Shah chairs the 73rd North Eastern Council plenary

The Council pushed 'Purvodaya' — Northeast as a trade hub for Southeast Asia, single-window investment, a Drug-Free campaign and cooperative-led dairy and fisheries.

What happened

• Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Shri Amit Shah chaired the 73rd Plenary of the North Eastern Council (NEC).
• He said peace has improved in the Northeast through more than 12 peace accords, and that 'Act East, Act First, Act Fast' is turning the vision of 'Purvodaya' (rise of the east) into reality.
• He urged that the recommendations of the High-Level Task Force on Northeast development be implemented in their entirety, and asked Chief Ministers and Governors to regularly review the Single Window Clearance System to attract investors.
• He highlighted that the Sabroom Land Port and new customs centres in Meghalaya and Mizoram would help the Northeast emerge as a hub for trade with Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
• On social priorities, he called for the Drug-Free Northeast Campaign to become a mass movement, backed by a special action plan against narcotics trafficking.
• He pushed for the region to become self-reliant in fish and milk production — with the NDDB and the Ministry of Cooperation expanding high-yielding dairy and the cooperative network — and flagged agarwood (agar) as an export opportunity.

For Prelims

• North Eastern Council (NEC): a statutory body created by the NEC Act, 1971, the nodal agency for the economic and social development of the eight Northeastern states; the Union Home Minister is its ex-officio Chairman (since the 2018 reconstitution) and the DoNER Minister its Vice-Chairman.
• 'Purvodaya': the policy idea of driving India's growth through the development of the eastern and northeastern regions — the framing for the whole plenary.
• 'Act East' connection: the Northeast is India's land bridge to ASEAN; land ports (like Sabroom in Tripura, linked to Bangladesh's Chattogram) and border trade are how the region plugs into Southeast Asian supply chains.
• Sabroom Land Port: in southern Tripura, near the India–Bangladesh border — part of the land-port infrastructure (under the Land Ports Authority of India) to boost cross-border trade.
• Cooperation + dairy/fisheries: the role of the NDDB (National Dairy Development Board) and the Ministry of Cooperation reflects the 'cooperative-led growth' model — relevant to the Sahkar-se-Samriddhi theme.
• Drug-Free Northeast: the Northeast's location near the Golden Triangle makes narcotics a security-and-development issue, hence the campaign and special action plan.
• Agarwood (agar): Assam/Northeast is a major source of agarwood and its oil — flagged as a high-value export opportunity; a neat region-specific GK fact.
• Why it matters for Mains: a compact case of cooperative federalism + border-region development + Act East — usable across GS-II governance and GS-III development/security.

For Mains

Syllabus: GS2.10 · GS3.16 · Linkage L2