Forest Rights Act : Towards the End of struggle for Tribals?

Tribals, who are a continuously neglected lot, are the Forest Dependent People (FDP) in India. Their deprived condition was recognised by the framers of Indian Constitution; hence they were identified for special= protection by notification as ‘Scheduled Tribes’ through the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950. At present there are about 700 tribes listed under this Schedule. Among them there are 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), whose living standard falls much below the Human Development Index (HDI) (GoI 2011). Overall, this means that there are 8.2 per cent citizens in India whose standard of living is much below the national average (Census of India 2011). Incidentally, Indian tribals form the largest chunk of the tribal population of the world.