-The Telegraph Tourists cannot step within 5km of the Jarawa reserve in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Nor can anybody — government or private — set up shop within this buffer zone. The Supreme Court has banned all commercial and tourist activities either inside the reserve or within this 5km-radius, squashing the island administration’s attempt to dilute a notification the Union territory’s government had itself passed nearly five years ago. In its judgment yesterday,...

Five months after two British newspapers released a controversial video film showing scantily clad Jarawa tribal women dancing for tourists in return for food and money, the government finally acted on Thursday: the Union Cabinet approved the promulgation of a law that brings into effect a buffer zone in the 5 km radius around the Jarawa tribal settlements in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and provides for imprisonment up to...

-Express News Service The government has decided to ban tourist activity and regulate commercial establishments within a five km radius of the habitat of aboriginal tribes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Cabinet on Thursday gave its approval to the proposal to promulgate the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Amendment Regulation 2012 to ensure that endangered tribes like the Jarawas are protected from “undesirable outside influences”. The decision comes...

-The Hindu   Fears expressed over misuse of Forest Rights Act Fearing that the Forest Rights Act, 2006, will be used as a populist programme leading to ineligible people benefitting from land grants, the Director-General of Forests has written to all Chief Secretaries of States to exercise restraint in granting land ownership records (pattas). Kaushik Mukherjee, Additional Chief Secretary to Government, Department of Forest, Ecology and Environment, said this at the national-level workshop on...

—PTI Two new videos have emerged that allegedly provide more proof of official involvement in “human safaris” for the benefit of tourists to see the protected Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands. The videos do not indicate the date when they were shot, but The Observer newspaper said the first film, a three minutes and 19 seconds clip, shot on a mobile phone, showed half-naked girls from the tribe dancing before an...