Recently a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the North Eastern Council (NEC) Shillong, IIM Shillong and the Union Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) for continuing the operation of the institute’s Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis. Actually the MoU was signed by Angshuman Dey, Joint Secretary of DoNER, Moses K Chalai, Secretary of NEC and Prof DP Goyal, Director of IIM Shillong. In fact the centre was created by a tripartite agreement between the three parties in October 2016. Actually it aimed to emerge as a state-of-the-art centre to assist the North East states and the implementing agencies to plan and executive the projects properly, promote innovations and function as a repository of best practices in the region which is very good.
In reality it was named after the former President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, who died in Shillong in July 2015 while on a visit to the city to speak at IIM Shillong. Actually the centre will work under a number of key areas, including training and development, research and consultancy, policy advocacy, knowledge dissemination and civic engagement.