Indian States & UTs Quiz: North-East India: Seven Sisters, Siliguri Corridor and the NEC

The Seven Sisters are Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, the seven states that were carved out of the old Assam province and its Union Territories between 1963 and 1987.

Both had been Union Territories since 1972, Arunachal Pradesh after the North East Frontier Agency was renamed and Mizoram after the Mizo hills were separated from Assam, and both were raised to statehood on the same day in February 1987.

The corridor runs through the northern districts of West Bengal around the town of Siliguri and is only about twenty kilometres wide at its narrowest, which is why it is nicknamed the Chicken's Neck.

The Council was set up by the North Eastern Council Act, 1971, started functioning in 1972 as the planning and advisory body for the region, and has had its secretariat at Shillong ever since; it works under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region.

Assam lies at the heart of the region and touches Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and West Bengal, that is seven Indian states, besides the foreign neighbours Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Keibul Lamjao lies on the southern part of Loktak Lake near Imphal and floats on phumdis, the thick mats of soil and rotting plant matter that drift on the water.

Article 371A was inserted when Nagaland was created and protects Naga customary law and practice, land and resources, so that an Act of Parliament on these matters applies to the state only if its Assembly so decides, and it gives the Governor a special responsibility for law and order.

Tripura juts into Bangladesh, which wraps around its north, west and south, so the state is joined to India only along its eastern side, where it meets Assam and Mizoram.

Majuli lies in the Brahmaputra in Assam, upstream of Jorhat, and is the largest river island; it is also the seat of the Vaishnavite satras founded in the tradition of Srimanta Sankardeva, and it was made a district of Assam, the first island district of the country.

The Hornbill festival is held at Kisama near Kohima and opens on 1 December, the day Nagaland became a state in 1963; it brings the major Naga tribes together and is called the festival of festivals, and the hornbill of its name is the bird that appears in Naga headgear…

The Sixth Schedule, read with Article 244, lets the tribal areas of these four states run Autonomous District Councils with their own powers over land, forests, village administration, inheritance and customary law, such as the Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam and the Khasi Hills council in Meghalaya.