Bodoland

Why in news?

• Assam Cabinet has approved the holding of the deferred Bodoland Territorial Council elections in December this year.
• The polls, scheduled for April 4, was postponed indefinitely in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

About Bodoland:

• Bodoland, officially the Bodoland Territorial Region, is an autonomous region in lower Assam.
• It made up of four districts on the north bank of the Brahmaputra river, by the foothills of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.
• It is administered by an elected body known as the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
• BTC came into existence under the terms of a peace agreement signed in February 2003 and its autonomy was further extended by an agreement signed in January 2020.
• The region is predominantly inhabited by the Bodo people and other indigenous communities of Assam
• The administrative region was created under the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution for the Boro people.
• Manas National Park, a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site, a Project Tiger reserve, an elephant reserve and a biosphere reserve is located in the BTC region.

About Bodo/Boro people:

• The Boro is the largest ethnolinguistic group in  Assam and speak Boro language, which is recognized as one of twenty-two scheduled languages in the Indian Constitution.
• The Boro people are recognized as a plains tribe in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
• Most Boros are Hindus and worship dozens of Hindu deities like Siva, Durga etc along with tribal deities like Bathou or Shijou. There is also a small Christian population.

PRELIMS QUESTION

Bodoland Territorial regions is an autonomous region located in the state of:
(a)Meghalaya
(b)Assam
(c)Tripura
(d)Mizoram

Answer to Prelims Question