Call it the tyranny of distance or pillory it as metropolitan distance, the sad reality is that politics in the northeast of India has traditionally been viewed as a sideshow, and a quaint one at that. While developments in Assam - the eldest of the so-called Seven Sisters - are considered relatively more important, the play of regional forces in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura is often greeted with incomprehension and cynicism.

Read Swapan Dasgupta's column here.