NORTH-EAST INDIA 41 following features: 1 Sharp regional differences in the levels of economic development; the existence of foreign enclaves, controlled by powerful capitalist monopolies in comparatively developed regions; the persistence of archaic social relations and economic structures in backward agricultural areas which impede the development of these regions; 2 Weakness of the economic nexus between the developed and the backward regions; 3 Ethnic and religious insulation of regions, which was formerly artificially sustained by the colonialists and is now utilized by neocolonial-ists in an effort to to preserve their control over the economic, social and political processes in the Third World countries; 4 Inadequate development of the infrastructure and an extremely uneven pattern of their location; 5 The urban network insufficiently developed, and hence, the choice of towns to be as potential nuclei of future economic regions far too narrow.8 Main Goals of Regional Planning In this context the following goals of regional planning as an important tool of socio-economic state policy have been set: 1 Rational spatial (geographical) pattern of production —rational in the sense that it fully conforms to the general economic and social goals of a country; 2 Development of every region in a country in accordance with its natural, economic and social conditions; 3 Securing of a harmonious territorial balance between sectoral activities and the development of every region all within the framework of a unified national economic complex.4 These three main goals have been further subdivided into particular ones, such as the creation of industrial and agro-industrial complexes, urban development and formation of new settlement patterns in conformity to production complexes of the given territories; the realization of inter-regional patterns of commodity flows; the solution of questions of employment and the regulation of migration processes, the priority development of backward areas and so on.5 Colonial economic development in India was meagre and concentrated chiefly on the presidency towns to which the rest of the country served as the hinterland. Extreme inter- and intra- regional disparity in economic growth was one of the many legacies of British rule in India. Within the framework of colonial backwardness for the whole of India, which grew out of the particular international division of labour imposed on this country by Great Britain, there were huge tracts of even more intense backwardness. The peripheral zones of India were certainly among them. Rugged topography and a comparatively more hostile environment