-The Times of India The 700-odd Tribals, who had fled their homes and taken shelter at a government accommodation in July last year, returned to their villages atop the Kaimur hills after 39 of them were given arms licences at the state government's behest. At least five Tribals were killed in Maoist violence in Kharwar-dominated villages on the hillsfollowing which they abandoned the hills and huddled at Chenari, a block HQ town...

The Jharkhand government, which is sitting on a pile of MoUs worth over Rs 3 lakh crore, is planning to take legal action against rouge investors who have signed deals with the state and used allocated resources for profit without setting up their promised projects. Chief minister Arjun Munda has directed chief secretary S.K. Chaudhary to create a dossier on the status of all MoUs signed by the state government since...

-PTI Days after two Tribals from Pune district filed a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging a Government notification which empowers Lavasa Corp to act as a special planning authority, the company termed the move as "motivated and malafide".  The realty firm, constructing a hill city (called Lavasa) near Pune, said the Tribals, residents of Mulshi taluka, have no locus to file the petition since they are not owners of land...

-PTI As the Centre plans to discuss the possibility of inclusion of Jarawa tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands into the mainstream, tribal rights body ‘Survival International' on Saturday said such steps would prove to be a disaster. “Any attempt to keep the Jarawas in the mainstream by force would be a disaster,” the London-based Survival said in a statement on Saturday. “Forcibly assimilating tribal people into national society has been viewed as...

Muslims, SCs, STs reflect better social indices, closer to national averages Early in the morning, Mohammad Nadeem, a 25-year-old ‘pakka adati’, big wholesaler, at one of Muzaffarnagar’s fruit and vegetable mandis, briskly sets about selling carrots and oranges. As he expertly sifts through sacks of fresh produce, it’s difficult to picture him hawking peanuts by the roadside. But for five years in this bustling western Uttar Pradesh mandi, Nadeem’s store...