IIT Roorkee Hosts Conference On Tribal Development

The Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee organised a National Conference on Tribal Development in India: Prospect and Retrospect on 3-4 February 2023. The seminar was sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research. This conference is part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav of the Government of India. The seminar reflected on the issue and questions concerning tribal development in India. Tribes in India constitute about 8.6 per cent of the country’s total population. They contributed immensely to the country’s diversity as tribes number around 705 communities, with all of them having unique and distinct customs, languages, religions and ways of life.

The question of tribal development is a pressing concern in post-independent India. Several policies and programmes were introduced to uplift and improve their condition. Since post-independent, several programmes and policies have been introduced that target the development and improvement of the living conditions of the tribes focusing on health, education, employment, food security, livelihood, and income generation. The two-day seminar grappled the pressing issues themed around constitutional rights and protection, governance and administration and the role of the State, education, health and livelihood, identity and tribes, tribal women and development, regional development and tribes, tribes and environment.