It has been decided that Guwahati will be the venue for the annual Indo-Japanese summit that will see the participation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The summit will take place sometime in mid-December. However, the dates are yet to be announced.
The two-day summit will include a cruise along the Brahmaputra river and a visit to the Imphal peace museum.
The old residence of the Deputy Commissioner is being renovated as it will host a cultural performance during the summit.
Hotels Taj Vivanta and Radisson Blu are being prepared to host the two leaders. One of these venues will also serve as the venue for a summit to be hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).
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In Imphal, the capital of Manipur, the two leaders are expected to visit a World War 2 peace monument built by the Japanese in 1994. It is in honour of the Japanese soldiers who died fighting during the war in 1944. It is estimated that more than 70,000 Japanese troops along with the troops of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose’s, Indian National Army laid down their lives.
They will also visit the Imphal Peace Museum that has been built with the support of the Nippon Foundation of Japan and in collaboration with the Manipur tourism forum and the state government.
This meeting in the North-Eastern part of the country assumes significance as in recent times, as the Japanese have invested in many projects in the region which include water supply and sewerage projects in Assam, road projects in Meghalaya, forest management projects in Tripura, Nagaland and Sikkim, and an irrigation project in Mizoram.
In June 2019, in a meeting between a Japanese delegation headed by the Japanese Ambassador to India and the Department of North Eastern region headed by Minister Dr Jitendra Singh, the Japanese pledged to invest Rs 13,000 crores in the region.
In the past few years, the government of India is taking foreign policy to the masses and has made an effort to shift it outside Delhi and involve the states. Delhi came to symbolize much of Indian foreign policy and its workings.
In the last five years many important summits have been hosted outside the capital. For example: Modi-Xi meet at Ahmedabad in Gujarat (2014) and Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu (2019) and the BRICS- BIMSTEC summit of 2016 in Goa.