Tips for teachers and students

• Immerse yourself in the storytelling traditions valued among tribal communities
• Search for Indian publications by and about members of tribal communities
• Ask questions like “How many ‘Scheduled Tribes’ are there in India?”; and “What distinguishes them from other communities?” (‘tribal’ or otherwise)
• Understand the intentions of India’s founding fathers: Gandhi & Nehru
• Derive inspiration from Tagore’s vision of rural culture 
• Find posts with information about a particular community
• Use an interactive map to find museum collections across India

Learn from M S Swaminathan – a world renowned scientist – how biological diversity contributes to public health, people’s livelihood and environmental security in addition to food security: his call on fellow citizens to use and share resources in a more sustainable and equitable manner; outlining the long journey from the 1992 Earth Summit to a commitment to foster inherited knowledge through India’s Biodiversity Act and Genome Saviour Award; an award intended to reward those who are “primary conservers” – guardians of biological diversity!

More about the work of his foundation which “aims to accelerate use of modern science and technology for agricultural and rural development to improve lives and livelihoods of communities.” – www.mssrf.org | Regarding the issues of food security raised above, and the nutritional value of indigenous grains, seeds and millets, read an in-depth report that concludes that “the tribal food basket has always been ­diverse and nutritious” >>

When your neighbour is a tiger | People’s Archive of Rural India
People living near or within the forest in the Bandipur National Park and the Sundarbans revere as well as fear the tiger. Their proximity to tigers, leopards, crocodiles and other big animals often causes violent confrontations, but it has also inspired myths and conservation. Here are PARI’s tales from tiger territory >>

Suggestions

• take the Guided tour of this website (also available for offline reading)
• enjoy a Virtual journey across India and explore other interactive maps
• explore the “Browse more contents by category” menu seen on the right if you use a regular browser (pc, laptop or tablet computer)
• click here if you use a smartphone

Up-to-date information

• use the Safe Google Search link (“Making the Internet a safer place to surf for children”).
• search select periodicals and type “tribal youth”, “trees tribal community”, “tribal school Odisha” (or any similar combination of keywords) to get a fair picture of the challenges faced by tribal communities in modern Indian society; and also to appreciate the new opportunities seized by India’s tribal youth.

The smart boy or clever girl who is deprived of the opportunity of schooling, or who goes to a school with dismal facilities (not to mention the high incidence of absentee teachers), not only loses the opportunities he or she could have had, but also adds to the massive waste of talent that is a characteristic of the life of our country.

Nobel Awardee Amartya Sen in The Argumentative Indian (Penguin Books, 2005), p. 344 | Find this and other books published in India | Tribal Children’s Right to Education | Video documentary on the Lifeworld of an Enlightened Villager | Related posts: Childhood | Childrens rights by UNICEF India >>

Information about and by the Government of India (policies, reports etc.) & NGO’s

See also

• Adverse inclusion | Casteism | Rural poverty
• Demographic Status of Scheduled Tribe Population of India (Census figures 2011)
• Denotified Tribes, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes – Report and Recommendations (Technical Advisory Group)
• Fact checking | Figures, census and other statistics
• Imprisonment & rehabilitation
• Map | An alphabetical journey across India: from Andaman to West Bengal
• Search tips | Names of tribal communities, regions and states of India
• State wise population of Scheduled Tribes (ST) and their percentage to the total population in the respective states and to the total STs population
• “What are the Rights of Scheduled Tribes?– Government of India (National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, NCST)
• “What is the Forest Rights Act about?” – Campaign for Survival and Dignity
• “Who are Scheduled Tribes?” – Government of India (National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, NCST)

Information on projects handled by Unicef and United Nations

• Unicef (United Nations Children’s Fund)
  • search posts on this website (all posts containing Unicef)
  • search Unicef’s website unicef.org (keywords used “tribal India”; also use your own keywords in the Search window)
• Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation)
  • search posts on this website (all posts containing Unesco)
  • search Unesco’s websites and in.one.un.org and whc.unesco.org (keywords used “tribal India”; also use your own keywords in the Search window)

Books released by Indian publishers

Find up-to-date information provided by, for and about Indian authors, researchers, officials, and educators | More search options >>
Search tips: in the search field seen here, type the name of any tribal (Adivasi) community, region, state or language; add keywords of special interest (childhood, language, sacred grove, tribal education, women); consider rights to which Scheduled Tribes are entitled (FRA Forest Rights Act, protection from illegal mining, UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, right to education, Universal Declaration of Human Rights); specify any other issue or news item you want to learn more about (biodiversity, climate change, ecology, economic development, ethnobotany, ethnomedicine, global warming, health, nutrition and malnutrition, rural poverty)

For a list of websites included in a single search, click here. To search Indian periodicals, magazines, web portals and other sources safely, click here. To find an Indian PhD thesis on a particular tribal community, region and related issues, click here >>