North East India and the Commonwealth Games

The little known North-Eastern states of India, especially Manipur, were well represented at the opening ceremony of the 2010 Commonwealth Games on 3 October in New Delhi bringing a sense of pride to a lot of people in the seven states - often called the seven sisters.

Took this from an email I received a couple of minutes ago:

The Indian contingent was led by a girl wearing Mizo Puan (from Mizoram?). Then there were the dances representing the varied culture of the country.

There were the Radha-Krishna dancers easily identified by the ladies wearing unique and big skirts and the Pung Cholom drummers from Manipur.

The Bamboo dance of Mizoram and the Bihu dance of Assam

And finally, we had World Champion boxer Mary Kom from Manipur carrying the queen's baton.

I think it was fitting that the first medals for India at the games was also won by Soniya Chanu and Sandhya Rani, both from Manipur, who won a silver and a bronze respectively at the women's weightlifting 48kg title on Monday.