The smart card versus unique identity number battle between P. Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia will hit the ground tomorrow at Porthapur village in Andaman and Nicobar Islands when the home minister hands out the first tranche of 2.56 lakh resident identity cards. The resident cards are a rival to the unique identity number conceived by the Planning Commission to establish authentic identification for each resident and cut out corruption in...

The widespread outrage following the telecast of video footage of Jarawa men and women dancing for tourists is both heartening and disappointing. Heartening because the media made a rather unusual attempt to address the existential challenges of a people known to us as 'primitives' and disappointing because it failed to generate a nuanced debate. The 30-second TV slots accorded to 'experts' and stakeholders served to polarise opinion on the incident...

-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...

-The Hindu   The Union government has directed the Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands to take action for the exploitation of Jarawa tribal women, who were made to dance semi-nude before tourists. Tribal Affairs Minister Krishna Chandra Deo told journalists that the Centre had directed the Lt. Governor to bring the culprits to book and enquire the circumstances in which the tribal women were subjugated to such abominable repression and prevent...

The recent shocking video showing naked Jarawa tribeswomen being forced to dance for food by tourists may highlight the risks of isolated, indigenous peoples of the world having contact with the modern world. The Jarawas of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands are only one of several reclusive tribes around the world that are now facing extinction. While the government of India and tribal affairs officials have tried to protect people like the...