ABSTRACT
The State of Tripura is one of the ‘Seven Sisters’, the states of the north-eastern region of India. Formerly a Hindu princely state, Tripura abuts into the predominantly Muslim country of Bangladesh, which surrounds it, except in the north-east, where a neck of territory has short eastern borders (totalling 160 km-99 miles, or 16% of Tripura’s total frontier length) with the other Indian states of Assam and Mizoram. Southern Tripura is separated from the bulk of Mizoram to the west by an up-thrusting spur of Bangladesh. Tripura’s name is variously ascribed to a locally prominent deity or to an original name of Tuipra (‘land adjoining water’—the kings of Tripura sometimes held sway over more territory than that constituting the modern state, which, as it is, lies only
some 50 km from the open sea). A protectorate of British India, its last ruler opted to accede to independent India upon the partition of the old empire in the subcontinent. Tripura officially became part of the Indian Union on 15 October 1949, and a full state in the federation on 21 September 1972. It was the smallest state of India until the accession of Sikkim in 1975, and became the third smallest when Goa became a state in 1987Tripura has an area of 10,486 sq km (4,048 sq miles).
