Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in India suffer from poor health conditions and are highly susceptible to various diseases. These communities often lack access to essential modern healthcare systems and facilities because of their remote inhabitation and cultural constraints. Their health-related perspectives are usually influenced by their cultural beliefs and practices, which challenge healthcare professionals to understand and address because of the prevalent stigma. An inclusive understanding of these social and cultural determinants is crucial for the development of an efficacious plan of action to reduce the disease burden among these groups. This study aims to explore how employing anthropological methodologies can serve as an effective tool for identifying and addressing the challenges faced by modern healthcare facilities while advocating for the incorporation of ethnomedicinal practices into wide-ranging health policy frameworks to improve the health outcomes of PVTGs in India.

Keywords: Community health, Disease burden, Ethnomedicine, Health policy, PVTGs

In the Indian context, social exclusion is typically seen as a structural and systemic component of marginalisation based on language, caste, community, ethnicity, and religion. But, the most notable aspect of social exclusion in Indian society is caste, which is thought to be primarily determined by birth, prescribed standards, and somewhat rigid notions of rituals and beliefs. People experience discrimination in the socio-economic sphere as a result of the caste system. Following independence, numerous actions were taken to guarantee various rights in the socioeconomic sphere in the constitution of India under various articles, including 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24, 25, 46, and 243D. Batwal is one of the castes in the Scheduled Caste category in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir that is still discriminated against, excluded and marginalized. According to primary and secondary sources, it can be said that the Batwal community ranks lower even among the Scheduled Castes in terms of education, income, land, occupation, and other aspects of social development. It continues to be socially excluded as it resides on the periphery of the already marginalised Scheduled Caste (SC) categorization. The Batwal is considered as the bottom most basically in social status, economic, and political power within the Scheduled Caste such as Ramdasia, Mahasha, and Barwala. The present paper focuses on the social exclusion of the Batwals and analyzes the factors responsible for their low status within the already marginalized Scheduled Caste category in Reasi district, Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

Keywords: Exclusion, Caste, Batwal, Marginalization, development.

The Sundarbans, the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest spanning India and Bangladesh, plays a crucial role in biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration, absorbing approximately 41.5 million tonnes of CO₂. However, climate change threatens this unique ecosystem through rising sea levels, increased salinity, and more frequent extreme weather events, adversely affecting both wildlife and the livelihoods of around 4.37 million local inhabitants. Despite existing environmental laws and institutional efforts by India’s Central and State Governments, overlaps and inefficiencies hinder effective action. Urgent global emission reductions, promotion of saline-resistant vegetation, and improved disaster response infrastructure are vital to safeguard the Sundarbans and its communities.

Keywords: Sundarbans, anthropogenic, climate change, UNESCO.

Anthropologically the tribal communities in India have a special set of people with their unique traditions, cultures, and practices. Marriage as an institution is recognized by all the tribes and societies in all over India, there are different ways of acquiring a mate or selection of mating in tribal society. Odisha occupies a unique position in the ethnographic map of India for having the large number of tribal communities and the Juang tribe is one of the most Vulnerable Populations. The Juang is one of the identified vulnerable populations inhabiting in the Gonasika hill of Keonjhar district of Odisha state. The Juang inhabits the contiguous hill ranges of high peaks extending from west Keonjhar to Pallahara or Dhenkanal and its adjoining areas which cover in the central hill belt of India. This paper discuss about the socio-cultural and the customary practices among the Juang tribe of the Keonjhar district, Odisha. The Juang Marriage is endogamous, but exogamous at the village level. Originally Juang villages are uniclan and the matrimonial relations can be established with the bandhu khillis, while with the kutumbas marriage is strictly prohibited. They have various forms of marriage and during the Pus Punei (Full moon day of month of February) marriage function has been started. Among the Juang bride price is prevalence among them and marriage plays a distinct role in the socio-cultural life of the Juang people. The marriage practice is partially changes because of the modernisation and impact of media and telecommunication.

Keywords: Juang, PVTG, marriage, culture, social system

The making of pottery is an important event of prehistoric past and marked the beginning of Neolithic revolution in human society. Its impact had largely revolutionized the colonization of human groups and found a new way of cultural tradition. Pottery is a century old craft used by human and is one of the most tangible and iconic elements of Indian art. The pottery industry in India has recently been promoted as a significant cottage industry by both small and large pottery organizations. During these times the technologies were changed according to the necessity of human society. Only a small number of traditional communities around the world continue to practise this tradition. Within the Potters community, pot-making expertise and knowledge are passed down from generation to generation. It is a craft that is unique to an agricultural economy. The present paper “An Ethnographic study of Terracotta Art and Pottery making in Subarnapur District, Odisha” is an outcome of the field research on the Balijuri people in western Odisha; examine the present status of crafts and artisans, technique of terracotta art and pottery production and sale of finished products. The present study aims at understanding the initiatives taken by the potters of Balijuri village of Subarnapur, Odisha to sustain the pottery industry and their livelihood. Paper also documents the procedures involved in making the pots and its current status. In Balijuri village of Subarnapur, Odisha, the potters started making many innovative pottery products using new technologies. Study revealed that this traditional craft system will not survive if some urgent measures are not be taken in near future.

Keywords: Traditional pottery making, Ethnography, Terracotta Art.

The fact that human kinship patterns are quite selective should be kept in mind. There is a rearrangement of components from a “biological” perspective. Some links in the biological matrix get special attention, whereas others are either disregarded or given less weight due to our biases about their relative merits. Belonging to one’s parents may appear to be the most essential and foundational part of “social” belonging, but it is actually just one of many connections that regulate interactions with a much wider range of people, including those with whom one is legally permitted to have sexual relations and those on the explicit market. Something very different from what one would expect in a primate society may be reportedly being “created” here. Based on the data we have, we are unable to identify a particular moment, a revolutionary turning point, a “red bar” in the evolutionary graph that would indicate a qualitative shift in the reproductive practices of early societies and the emergence of more complex forms of communication. “His claim that pattern detection “above the individual level” is crucial to understanding our distant past is challenged by John Gowlett, who demonstrates how challenging it is to detect patterns in the ancient material record. Indicators of social order have been there since long before any modern monkey could imagine them. Examples of such signals include the clustering of people around “home bases,” the first signs of fire suppression, and patterns in the geographical distribution of artefacts that show the flow of raw materials from their origins to production sites and then along trade routes. Although some ground patterns were unintentional results of movement (whether by humans or other animals), the most important takeaway from the first session was the notion that other patterns were the result of “propositions,” or deliberate categorisation. The first would denote clusters of connected occurrences, often associated with motion, and the second for fluctuations at the local level, such as those brought about by placement or apparent categorisation according to size, colour, form, technique, etc.” There is evidence for patterns of activity at concentrated areas that reach all the way back to the start of mankind, long before our anatomical modernity, even if Gowlett notes how weak and inaccurate the data is. He goes over some rough ideas about how to evaluate concentration and movement patterns, breaking them down into the three main epochs that have occurred since stone artefacts first showed up in written records. This new information on early toolmakers, who lived around 2.6 million years ago, expands our understanding of what it means for a landscape to have been inhabited in. Gowlett notes that the nascent “economy” of production and trade could have consequences for the development of the reciprocities we normally associate with familial relationships. He also brings out the fact that there is strong evidence from very early on that the idea of a home base near water had an impact on group structure.

Keywords: Culture, biological, social kinship, organisation, science, ego, nature, ecological.