Assam

The land corresponds a world of contrast and excitement, something celestial and amazing. It is a Magic Land, a Green Paradise. It combines so many and such varied passions and beauties that one has to take a pause at least for its praise.

For Assam is identified no better than by its Bihu songs and dances, the Kaziranga Wild Life Sanctuary where the rare one-horned rhinoceros roams at will, silks such as paat and muga which rank amongst the finest in the world, the State’s tea which finds its way to millions of homes all over the globe, and the Shrine of Kamakhya which draws thousands of devotees every year.

Spread beneath the foothills of the Eastern Himalayas, Assam has a history dating back to the Vedic ages. During Mahabharata age, it was known as Pragjyotish (Land of Eastern Light). In the Puranas and Tantras, Assam was referred to as Kamrupa- the land where Kamadeva, the God of Love, was reborn.

In ancient times Assam constituted a part of the land known successively as Pragjyotisha or Pragjyotishpura, and Kamarupa. Asom (Axom) or its anglicized version Assam is a comparatively modern name. Opinions on the root of the name vary with one view ascribing its origin to the Bodo word Ha-Cham which means "low or level country" and a second view ascribing it to the word Asama, meaning "unequalled" or "peerless", and used to denote the Ahoms, a Shan tribe which ruled the land for six centuries from the 13th Century A.D.

It was during the Varmana dynasty that Assam was chronicled in the SI-YUKI, the famed travelogue of Hiuen-Tsang, a Chinese pilgrim. After the 600 years’ Ahom-Kingdom, Assam became part of British India in 1826 and then a constituent state of Independent India.

Geographically, Assam is surrounded by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh on the North, Nagaland and Manipur on the East, Meghalalya and Mizoram on the South and Bangladesh, Tripura and West Bengal on the West. Since independence, many changes have taken place in Assam geographically and in many other respects. At present, total land area of it is 78, 523 sq. kms. It accounts 2.4% of the total geographical area of the country. Demographically, Assam is the most populous state in the North East India. Economically, out of the eight North East States, Assam is the most developed. But compared to other states like Maharashtra, Tamilnadu, Gujarat, Assam lags far behind in almost all economic spheres.

Some of the important sectors of Assam: