North-Eastern States
In the north-east of India are located seven states, known as Seven Sisters. Five of these are located in hills, so we shall study them in this lesson. The north-eastern states included among Seven Sisters are : Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Assam. Inhabited by tribals, the five hilly states in North-east India have their unique lifestyles, cultures, traditions, languages and dialects. People are mainly farmers and craftsmen. They practise jhoom, a type of farming technique, in which they clear a forest land for farming and abandon it after two-three years. This farming technique causes soil erosion.
Arunachal Pradesh
Itanagar is the capital of this state. The Brahmaputra River enters India in this state. The chief tribe living here is Bodo. The chief crops grown here include rice, maize, millets, wheat and mustard. It rains much here, so people make their houses on bamboos above the ground to protect themselves from rainwater and snakes.
Meghalaya
Meghalaya is the rainiest state of India, and Mawsynram is the rainiest place in the world. The capital of this state is Shillong. The chief tribe living here is Garo. People mainly grow the crops of rice, potato, pineapple, orange, sugarcane and jute.