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Armed Groups in Northeast India — A Plain-Language Guide to Who They Are, What They Want, and Why They Still Exist

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Armed Groups in Northeast India — A Plain-Language Guide to Who They Are, What They Want, and Why They Still Exist Armed Groups in Northeast India — A Plain-Language Guide to Who They Are, What They Want, and Why They Still Exist By BUGLE  |  June 2026  |  Last updated: June 2026  |  14 min read BUGLE has covered Northeast India's civil rights and security since 2008. This post is updated with 2026 data from SATP (South Asia Terrorism Portal) and Eurasia Review's May 2026 security assessment. Where things stand in June 2026: Northeast India has over 40 designated armed groups, though the number actively engaged in violence has declined sharply over the past decade. Key 2026 developments: India confirmed drone strikes on ULFA-I and NSCN camps in Myanmar in January 2026. NSCN-K-YA killed three Assam Rifles personnel in Arunachal Pradesh in March 2026, claiming it was retaliation for border fencing. NSCN-IM peace talks remain stalled over...
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Why Can't Ladakh Just Be Added to the Sixth Schedule? — The Amendment Problem Explained (2026) Why Can't Ladakh Just Be Added to the Sixth Schedule? — What the Schedule Actually Does, and the Amendment Problem Explained By BUGLE | July 2026 | Last updated: July 2026 | 12 min read The short answer: Ladakh cannot simply be "added" to the Sixth Schedule because the Schedule, by its own constitutional text, applies only to tribal areas in four Northeast states — Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. Extending it anywhere else needs a constitutional amendment , which the government has so far declined to bring. That is the whole obstacle in one sentence. Everything else — Ladakh's 97% tribal population, the September 2025 deaths in Leh, Sonam Wangchuk's detention and March 2026 release — is the political pressure pushing against that constitutional wall. Why this matters right now: Ladakh's demand is at its loudest since it became a Union T...
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The Assam Accord 1985 — What It Promised, What It Delivered, and How It Led to the NRC

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The Assam Accord 1985 — What It Promised, What It Delivered, and How It Led to the NRC The Assam Accord 1985 — What It Promised, What It Delivered, and How It Led to the NRC By BUGLE  |  June 2026  |  Last updated: June 2026  |  13 min read The short answer: The Assam Accord was signed on August 15, 1985 between the Government of India and the leaders of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) to end a six-year anti-foreigner agitation. It promised to identify and deport illegal migrants who entered Assam after March 24, 1971, protect Assamese cultural identity, and update the National Register of Citizens. Forty years later, the detection and deportation of post-1971 migrants has barely happened, the NRC update it mandated excluded 1.9 million people but sent almost none back to Bangladesh, and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) of 2019 — which offers citizenship to non-Muslim migrants from Bangladesh — is widely seen in Assam as a direct...
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What Is Jhum Cultivation? — Why Northeast India's Shifting Agriculture Persists, and What the Debate Is Really About

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What Is Jhum Cultivation? — Why Northeast India's Shifting Agriculture Persists, and What the Debate Is Really About What Is Jhum Cultivation? — Why Northeast India's Shifting Agriculture Persists, and What the Debate Is Really About By BUGLE  |  June 2026  |  Last updated: June 2026  |  11 min read The short answer: Jhum cultivation — also called shifting cultivation or slash-and-burn agriculture — is a traditional farming method practised by tribal communities across Northeast India's hill regions. A plot of forest is cleared by cutting and burning vegetation, crops are grown for one to three seasons, and then the plot is left to regenerate while the farmer moves to a new plot. When practised with adequate fallow periods of 10–20 years, it is a sustainable and ecologically intelligent system. When fallow periods collapse to 2–3 years under population pressure — as is increasingly happening — it causes serious deforestation and soil de...
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