Jarawa tribe facing extinction

Jarawa girls in clothes given to them by outsiders who can enter the reserve through an illegal road.

The Jarawa (also Järawa, Jarwa) are one of the adivasi indigenous peoples of Andaman Islands in India. Their present numbers are estimated at between 250–400 individuals. Since they have largely shunned interactions with outsiders, many particulars of their society, culture and traditions are poorly understood. Their name means "people of the earth" or "hostile people" in Aka- Bea. The biggest threat to Jarawa in recent years came from the building of the Great Andaman Trunk Road through their hewer western forest homeland in the 1970s. In late 1997, some Jarwa started coming out of their forest to visit nearby settlements for the first time. Within months a serious measles eidemic broke out. Later, in 2006 the Jarawa suffered another outbreak of measles.The impact of the highway, in addition to widespread encroachment, poaching and commercial exploitation of Jarawa lands.

A major problem is the volume of sightseeing tours that are operated by private companies, where tourists view, photograph or otherwise attempt interactions with Jarawas, who are often begging by the highway. These are illegal under Indian law, and in March 2008, the Tourism Department of the Andaman and Nicobar administration issued a fresh warning to tour operators that attempting contact with Jarawas, photographing them, stopping vehicles while transiting through their land or offering them rides were prohibited under the Protection of Aboriginal Tribes regulation,1956 and would be prosecuted under a strict interpretation of the statute. It has been alleged, however, that these rules are openly being flouted with over 500 tourists being taken to view Jarawas daily by private tour operators, while technically being shown as transiting to legitimate destinations and resulting in continuing daily interaction between the Jarawa and day tourists inside the reserve area.

On 21 January 2013 a Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and H.L. Gokhale passed an order banning the tourists from taking trunk road passing through Jarawa area.