Meghalaya is a state in northeastern India. Meghalaya was formed by carving out two districts from the state of Assam: the United Khasi Hills and Jaintia Hills, and the Garo Hills on 21 January 1972. Meghalaya was previously part of Assam, but on 21 January 1972, the districts of Khasi, Garo and Jaintia hills became the new state of Meghalaya. The population of Meghalaya as of 2016 is estimated to be 3,211,474. Meghalaya covers an area of approximately 22,430 square kilometres, with a length-to-breadth ratio of about 3:1.
Khasi is an Austroasiatic language spoken primarily in Meghalaya state in India by the Khasi people. It is also spoken by a sizeable population in Assam and Bangladesh. Khasi is part of the Austroasiatic language family, and is related to Khmer, Palaung, Vietnamese and Mon languages of Southeast Asia, and the Munda and Nicobarese branches of that family, which are spoken in east–central India and in the Nicobar Islands, respectively.
Shillong is a hill station in the northeastern part of India and the capital of Meghalaya, which means "The Abode of Clouds". It is the headquarters of the East Khasi Hills district. Shillong is the 330th most populous city in India with a population of 143,229 according to the 2011 census. It is said that the rolling hills around the town reminded the British of Scotland. Hence, they would also refer to it as the "Scotland of the East".
The Khasi people are an ethnic group of Meghalaya in north-eastern India with a significant population in the bordering state of Assam, and in certain parts of Bangladesh. The Khasi people form the majority of the population of the eastern part of Meghalaya, and is the state's largest community, with around 48% of the population of Meghalaya. They are among the few Austroasiatic-speaking peoples in South Asia. A cultural tradition of the Khasi people is that they follow the matrilineal system of descent and inheritance. Under the Constitution of India, the Khasis have been granted the status of Scheduled Tribe.
Jowai is the headquarters of the West Jaintia Hills district of the state of Meghalaya, India, and is home to the Pnar, a sub-tribe of the Khasi people. It is located on a plateau surrounded on three sides by the Myntdu river bordering Bangladesh to the south. Due to its high altitude of 1365 m above sea level, Jowai experiences warm summers with cool to chilly winters.
The Jaintia Kingdom was a matrilineal kingdom in present-day Bangladesh's Sylhet Division and India's Meghalaya state. It was partitioned into three in 630 AD by Raja Guhak for his three sons, into the Jaintia Kingdom, Gour Kingdom and Laur Kingdom. It was annexed by the British East India Company in 1835. All the Khasi (Pnar) Rajahs of the Jaintiapur Kingdom are from the Syiem Sutnga clan, a Pnar clan of the Khasi tribe which claims descent from Ka Li Dohkha, a divine nymph.
The indigenous people of Bangladesh refer to ethnic minorities in Chittagong Hill Tracts (southeastern), Sylhet Division (northeastern), Rajshahi Division (west), and Mymensingh Division (north-central) areas of the country. The total population of indigenous ethnic minorities in Bangladesh was estimated to be over 2 million in 2010. They are diverse ethnic communities including Tibeto-Burman, Austric and Dravidian people.
Mizoram Presbyterian ChurchSynod is the largest Christian denomination in Mizoram, northeast India. It was a direct progeny of the Calvinistic Methodist Church in Wales. It was the first church in Mizoram and is now one of the constituent bodies of a larger denomination Presbyterian Church of India (PCI), which has its headquarters in Shillong, Meghalaya. The administrative body called the Mizoram Synod has its headquarters at Mission Veng, Aizawl. As the first church, it remains the largest denomination in Mizoram.
The Presbyterian Church of India (PCI) is a mainline Protestant church based in India, with over one million adherents, mostly in Northeast India. It is one of the largest Christian denominations in that region.
George Gilbert Swell was a college professor, an Indian politician, an ambassador to several countries, a former Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha and its member from Shillong in Meghalaya. Over a span of more than 35 years, he represented India at high levels nationally and internationally. Though arising from a modest and rural background in far Northeast India, Swell quickly rose to prominence in every field he entered.
William Williams was a Welsh Presbyterian missionary to Khasi Hills, northeast India, in the late 19th century. He was a son of a ship captain in Nanternis, a small village in Wales. Following his father's footstep he became a sailor for five years. Then he took a profession in carpentry for two years. After graduating in theology from East London Missionary Training Institute he became a pastor. Pursuing his ambition he became a missionary of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Foreign Mission to Khasi people in India from 1887 until his death. He died of typhoid in 1892.
David Evan Jones, Mizo name Zosaphluia was a Welsh missionary in Mizoram, India, connected to both the Mizoram Presbyterian Church and the Baptist Church of Mizoram.
Mawphlang is a village in the East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya state in north-eastern India, 25 kilometers from Shillong. The word maw means "stone", maw phlang means "grassy stone," and is one of many settlements in the Khasi hills named after monoliths.
Dr. Robert Arthur Hughes, M.B.Ch.B, M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., F.R.C.S., O.B.E., was a medical missionary for the Presbyterian Church of Wales who worked in Shillong from 1939–1969 at the Welsh Mission Hospital, also known as the Dr. H. Gordon Roberts Hospital, Shillong. Hughes trained as a surgeon in London prior to his time in India. He is called the "Schweitzer of Assam," comparing his missionary work to that of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer. During his 40 years in India, Hughes expanded the Welsh Mission Hospital and developed a traveling dispensary to aid those in the surrounding provinces. Hughes is best known for attempting to eradicate malaria from the area, introducing a vagus nerve resection process to alleviate pain from peptic ulcers and a rickets treatment in the infant population, recognising a protein calorie deficiency disorder called kwashiorkor in the Indian population, founding the area's first blood bank, performing the first lower segment Caesarean section without antibiotics to India, and expanding educational training for medical and nursing organisations.
The history of Christianity in Mizoram covers the origin and development of all forms of Christianity in Mizoram since the British occupation at the end of the 19th century. Christianity arrived as a consequence of tribal warfare, raids of British plantations, and the ensuing punitive British military expedition called the Lushai Expedition of 1871. The subsequent annexation of the erstwhile Lushai Hills to the British Empire opened the gateway for British Christian missions to evangelise the Mizo people.
West Jaintia Hills is an administrative District in the state of Meghalaya in India. The united district was created on 22 February 1972 and occupied an area of 3819 km2. It had a population of 270,352. The district is part of the Meghalaya subtropical forests ecoregion. With the bifurcation of the erstwhile Jaintia Hills District into East and West Jaintia Hills Districts, West Jaintia Hills District came into existence on 31 July 2012 with its headquarters at Jowai. Jowai is the host of all the heads of important governmental offices and establishments, educational institutions, hospitals, banking institutions, etc.
Hamlet Bareh Ngapkynta (1931-2012) was an Indian writer, historian and film director from the Northeast Indian state of Meghalaya. He is known as the first person from the Khasi tribe, an indigenous ethic group of the state, to secure a doctoral degree (PhD) and as the maker of the first feature film in Khasi language, Ka Synjuk Ri ki Laiphew Syiem. He was the chairman of the executive committee of the Rajiv Gandhi University, Arunachal Pradesh and a recipient of the 2004 Meghalaya Day Award. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri in 2004,
Frances Newton Hospital, also called Mission Hospital, is a hospital in Ferozepur Cantonment. It was established in 1894. The hospital functions under the aegis of the CNI, Diocese of Chandigarh, with Rev. Joel Mall as the Bishop. The hospital is located on station road about 0.5 km from Cantonment railway station and 3.2 km from Cantonment bus stand. The hospital provides excellent nursing care. It is the oldest hospital and teaching institute of North India.
The Greater Sylhet region predominantly includes the Sylhet Division in Bangladesh, and Karimganj district in Assam, India. The history of the Sylhet region begins with the existence of expanded commercial centres in the area that is now Sylhet City. Historically known as Srihatta and Shilhatta, it was ruled by the Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms of Harikela and Kamarupa before passing to the control of the Sena and Deva dynasties in the early medieval period. After the fall of these two Hindu principalities, the region became home to many more independent petty kingdoms such as Jaintia, Gour, Laur, and later Taraf, Pratapgarh, Jagannathpur, Chandrapur and Ita. After the Conquest of Sylhet in the 14th century, the region was absorbed into Shamsuddin Firoz Shah's independent principality based in Lakhnauti, Western Bengal. It was then successively ruled by the Muslim sultanates of Delhi and the Bengal Sultanate before collapsing into Muslim petty kingdoms, mostly ruled by Afghan chieftains, after the fall of the Karrani dynasty in 1576. Described as Bengal's Wild East, the Mughals struggled in defeating the chieftains of Sylhet. After the defeat of Khwaja Usman, their most formidable opponent, the area finally came under Mughal rule in 1612. Sylhet emerged as the Mughals' most significant imperial outpost in the east and its importance remained as such throughout the seventeenth century. After the Mughals, the British Empire ruled the region for over 180 years until the independence of Pakistan and India. There was a complete list of the different amils who governed Sylhet which was recorded in the office of the Qanungoh of Sylhet. However, most complete copies have been lost or destroyed. Dates from letters and seal traces show evidence that the amils were constantly changed. In 1947, when a referendum was held, Sylhet decided to join the Pakistani province of East Bengal. However, when the Radcliffe Line was drawn up, Karimganj district of Barak Valley was given to India by the commission after being pleaded by Abdul Matlib Mazumdar's delegation. Throughout the History of Sylhet, raids and invasions were also common from neighbouring kingdoms as well as tribes such as the Khasis and Kukis.
