Clinging to India by a thread of land known as the "chicken's neck", the northeastern states have been ravaged by 50 years of bloody conflicts.

Village is pitted against village, tribe against tribe, tribal against non-tribal. There are locals fighting against migrants and Muslims fighting for Islamic rule. Independence movements battle for secession (or autonomy) for their various districts, states, or pan-state tribal homelands.

In two of the seven states, Assam and Manipur, there is low intensity war. A ceasefire was agreed in Nagaland several years ago but inter-faction fighting continues. There are also small militant groups in Tripura.

Corruption and extortion are rife and many insurgent groups have become criminalised. Small arms are widespread. A substantial development budget from the capital largely leaks away along illegitimate channels.

Over 50,000 people have died in the violence since 1947. Large numbers of people have been displaced by conflict. Exact numbers are not known, but there are thought to be hundreds of thousands of IDPs, with the greatest forced displacements in Assam, Manipur and Tripura. But there does not appear to have been any proper assessment of the displaced and their conditions by any governmental or non-governmental organisation.

Access is tricky. International staff from humanitarian organisations are in general denied entry into the states. Those who do get in are closely monitored and their movements restricted.

"It's completely forgotten," says Helen O'Neill, of MSF-Holland, which works in Assam and Manipur. "Nobody really thinks about it or knows about it. It surprises us that there isn't more out there in the press about it. But India really does not want international NGOs treating it like the Third World."

The conflicts have their roots in the extraordinary diversity of the area - a gateway between India and eastern Asia. Its people have resisted control by the empires of India throughout history.

The area is a turbulence of languages, races, religions and civilisations, including 400 tribal and sub-tribal groups many of whom fear loss of identity.

The tribes arrived in waves of migration from the East and the West. During the time of the British in India more were added to the melting pot, coming from other parts of India to work as administrators, plantation workers and cultivators.

The British segregated the tribal populations into areas akin to reservations between 1874 and 1935. This created a gulf between "backward" tribal areas and the modernising non-tribal plains - a division that persisted after India gained independence in 1947.

When Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971 the result was economic disaster for the northeastern states. Their inland water, road and railway communications with the rest of India were abruptly severed and they lost access to any port.

Soon after, the Chinese takeover of Tibet along with political changes in Myanmar hardened softer borders that lay to the east.

The region's population has recently increased with migrants from Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Although the central government has made substantial investment in economic development this has not improved the lot of the ordinary person.

The states are poorly governed and rife with corruption and extortion.

The prognosis for the region is mixed. Although India uses its military to weaken rebels, it acknowledges that only political solutions will work. It has held dialogues with many insurgent groups and brokered peace deals with some of them.

In 2004 the government announced it would hold talks with any group willing to stop violence, without demanding they disarm first. This led to an increased number of peace talks.

The public is applying more pressure for peaceful resolutions of grievances, and civil society groups in the region have become more active, helping to start and facilitate dialogues.

But there are so many militant groups that some have increased their violence in response to the government opening talks with others.

The conflict in jungle-covered Nagaland is India's oldest and credited with inspiring others in the region.

Nagas, a loose collection of about 30 tribes, have fought since 1947 for a separate homeland that includes parts of the predominantly Christian state of Nagaland as well as areas in Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

India says creation of a greater Naga state might spark fierce agitations in other states. Security analysts say peace with the Nagas is crucial for a broader peace in the northeast.

More than 20,000 people died in the Naga insurgency until a ceasefire in 1997. Despite numerous talks between the government and rebels, little progress has been made.

The billions of dollars' worth of oil thought to lie underneath Nagaland is also a factor in the conflict. India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) was forced out of the area more than a decade ago but was readmitted in 2006. Local officials hope the revenues will help make Nagaland a self-reliant state.

The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) is the most powerful rebel group in the region but is divided by feuding.

Rebels have accused the government of killing scores of their cadres in violation of the ceasefire. But analysts say a return to conflict is unlikely.

In January 2008, India's federal government dissolved Nagaland's state assembly following a controversial no-confidence vote in the assembly.

In May, the main faction of the NSCN accused India of encouraging rival groups to attack them and sabotage the peace process.

The NSCN split into two factions in the late 1980s and the breakaway group, NSCN (Khaplang) is said to be backed by the government, according to political analysts. The two groups regularly fight.
The insurgency in Assam first arose from demands for the deportation of illegal Bangladeshi migrants.

At least 2,000 people, mainly immigrants, were killed in clashes in central Assam in 1983. In response, the Indian government granted citizenship in 1985 to the millions of settlers from former East Pakistan who arrived before 1971.

More violence in 1994 left thousands of Muslims living in roadside huts on the national highway near Bijni, unable to own or work the land. And thousands were driven out by angry mobs in 2005.

Fighting flared again in October 2008 with clashes between Bodo tribesmen and Muslims. Dozens were killed - some by police firing - and thousands lost their homes in some of the worst violence since 1983.

The Bodos feel they are being marginalised in their homeland by the influx of Muslims, who comprise an estimated 40 percent of Assam's population.

A second campaign in Assam is the secessionist insurgency, which was formally launched in 1979 with the creation of armed groups such as the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). At least 10,000 people have been killed in separatist violence.

Peace talks with the ULFA collapsed in September 2006. Since then, rebels have continued to attack police, security forces, politicians and railway construction workers.

Another insurgency emerged in the late 1980s, with the Bodo demanding a separate state within India. The National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) signed a ceasefire agreement with the government in 2005.

The NDFB denied allegations by state officials in 2008 that it was involved in clashes with Muslim settlers.

In the late 1990s militant organisations, including Muslim militias, proliferated along tribal, religious and cultural faultlines. Clashes between groups have displaced hundreds of thousands.

Some rebel groups have made deals with the government, but other groups have resurged.

In Manipur, more than half-a-dozen guerrilla groups are fighting troops, some battling for freedom and others for political autonomy. The violence has left more than 20,000 people dead in the tiny state which borders Myanmar.

Tribal groups, mainly Nagas and Kukis, have been fighting for separate homelands since 1974. Manipur has been administered by the Indian army since 1980.

Tensions between tribal groups have spawned many secondary conflicts, often over changes in land ownership. One assessment found 18 active insurgency groups in the state.

There is little industry in Manipur and there are few job opportunities, leading thousands of frustrated young people to join the separatists.

One of the more prominent groups is the People's Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) which demands statehood and wants to throw non-Manipuris out. PREPAK rebels carry out regular attacks.

India says many rebels live and train in jungle camps over the border in Myanmar.

The army has carried out counter-insurgency operations, which together with ethnic clashes, have displaced thousands.

A six-year hunger strike by a young Manipuri woman has drawn attention to the government's controversial Armed Forces Special Powers Act or AFSPA, which gives sweeping powers to the army in the state.

The government says the law is necessary but civil society groups say it has led to gross human rights violations by the army.

Manipur also has an endemic drug problem because of its proximity to the opium fields of the Golden Triangle, with an accompanying epidemic of HIV/AIDS.

Tripura, a knobble of land protruding south into Bangladesh, is home to native tribals and Bengalis.

Most of the latter, who make up three-quarters of the population of 3 million, arrived as refugees from Bangladesh after its independence in 1971.

There are two main separatist rebel groups, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF). Both want independence for the tribal areas of the state, with the removal of Bengali immigrants, and both have attacked the Bengali-speaking community as well as kidnapping their political opposition.

Attacks on Bengalis in northern Tripura have caused displacement - there are thought now to be 50,000 to 100,000 IDPs.

Another major cause of displacement has been the building by India of a fence along the border with Bangladesh, during which tens of thousands of people were evicted from their homes.

Meanwhile, Tripura also hosts 31,000 people who fled fighting in the neighbouring state of Mizoram.

They remain in grim camps with severe food shortages because of an impasse in negotiations about their return to Mizoram.

At the end of 2006 several Indian newspapers reported a sharp decline in violence in Tripura. Abductions have plummeted (542 in 2000 to 35 in 2006), according to the Director General of Police G M Srivastava. Police chiefs say that the number of killings has dropped too, citing 19 insurgency-related deaths in 2007 compared to 152 in 2000.

Arunachal Pradesh, the most north-easterly state, is generally portrayed as a peaceful neighbour that suffers primarily from an overflow of violence from neighbouring Nagaland.

But there are signs that indigenous insurgent groups are appearing.

Mizoram is also relatively peaceful. The Mizo National Front signed a deal with the government in 1986 ending a 20-year insurgency.

But the activities of the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) have increased, causing some casualties.

Many of the tribes in Meghalaya have set up militant organisations that are committing violence against each other and increasingly getting involved in criminal and extortion activities.

The two key militant outfits are the Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) and the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC).

Some analysts say they camouflage their activities with political demands for protection against foreigners and the creation of separate homelands.