(Sample Material) Study Kit on Current Affairs for UPSC Mains Examination
India and World Organizations: India- Asean Relations
India’s Look East Policy was initiated in 1990s and since then, India’s relationship with ASEAN remains one of the cornerstones of our foreign policy and the very foundation of our Look East Policy. India became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992, which was upgraded to full dialogue partnership in 1996. Since 2002, we have had annual Summits with ASEAN. ASEAN and India commemorated the 20th anniversary of dialogue-level partnership and the 10th anniversary of Summit-level partnership with a Commemorative Summit in New Delhi under the theme ‘ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace and Shared Prosperity’ on December 20-21, 2012. The Commemorative Summit attended by the Leaders from all the 10 ASEAN countries endorsed elevating our partnership to a ‘Strategic Partnership’. The Leaders also adopted the ‘ASEAN-India Vision Statement’, which charts the future of ASEAN-India cooperation.
ASEAN-India functional cooperation is diverse and includes cooperation across a range of sectors, such as trade, science & technology, agriculture, environment, human resource development, space science, new and renewable energy, information and communication technology, telecommunications, transport and infrastructure, tourism and culture, and health and pharmaceuticals.
