North East India - The Seven Sisters

 
North East India, a physically and historically isolated region of India. It is an unexplored paradise with abundant natural landscapes & beauty, wild life, flora & fauna, historical temples and monuments and its colorful people. Its biodiversity, geography and diversified cultural heritage create the region not only a must on the travel list of recreational sports (trekking, rafting, angling, para-gliding and nature photography), cultural, religious and nature travelers but also makes it the most beautiful eco-tourism destination in South Asia.

The region is ethnically distinct from the rest of India and has strong ethnic, cuisine and cultural ties with East Asia and Southeast Asia. Linguistically the region is distinguished by a preponderance of Tibeto-Burman languages...

North-East of India comprises of eight states including the contiguous Seven Sister States (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura) and Sikkim with an area of 262185 Sq. Km. The region accounts for 7.9% of the total land space of the country and nearly 90% of its borders share international boundaries with Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Nepal and Myanmar.

This region is connected with the rest of India only through a narrow Siliguri corridor in North Bengal, having an approximate width of 33 km on the eastern side and 21 km on the western side. This narrow corridor is popularly known as the “Chicken’s neck”.

According to 2011 census, the region has close to 45 million people which constitute only about 3.8 per cent of the total population of the country. The region has over 160 Scheduled Tribes and 94 Scheduled castes. The region has over 440 ethnic groups speaking different languages and dialects. About 84 per cent of the population lives in the countryside.

About 70% of the region is hilly, and the topography varies within each state. Mountains and hills cover most of Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Sikkim and about half of Tripura, one-fifth of Assam and nine-tenth of Manipur. The plains of the region are mainly made up of separate land masses – the Brahmaputra Valley and the Barak Valley in Assam and the Tripura plains in the South. In Manipur, the valley comprises only about 10% of the total area of the state.

The rainy season in this region generally commences from March and lasts till the middle of October. The total annual rainfall varies significantly in the region. In Khasi and Jaintia Hills, the annual intensity of rainfall reaches the maximum of about 1080-cm around Cherrapunjee and Mawsynram (having highest rainfall in the world).

North Eastern Council (NEC) was constituted in 1971 as the acting agency for the development of the eight states. The North Eastern Development Finance Corporation Ltd (NEDFi) was incorporated on August 9, 1995 and the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) was set up in September 2001. The region is represented in the Indian Parliament by 25 candidates in the Lok Sabha house of total 545 seats.


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