Tribal Communities Research Articles

Sickle Cell Gene Frequency Analysis in Visapur, District Chandrapur: A Case Study of Single Village from Central India

Sickle cell anemia burden is generally studied by calculating how many sickle cell carriers are found in specific diagnostic camps based on combination of screening test and confirmatory tests i.e. sickle cell carrier prevalence method. Where as actual total numbers of alleles can be estimated by combining data of how many carriers and homozygous patients are found in the confirmatory testing camps, which is a gene frequency calculation method. Aim of this study is to compare prevalence and gene frequency calculations for one village data, for study conducted in year 2005 at Visapur village, Chandrapur district, Central India. Sampling was done in village school followed by screening and confirmatory testing at field work laboratory at Ballarpur city which included solubility test, hemoglobin estimation, hemoglobin electrophoresis using cellulose acetate membrane method followed by pedigree analysis after parent studies. This is a sickle cell anaemia study of single village data point. Out of total population of the village, 6.68% population were randomly studied. Total registrations done for 755 individuals and out of that total 628 individuals were tested (N = 628, 293 were females and 335 were males) for solubility tests followed by haemoglobin electrophoresis. For socioeconomically disadvantages groups, it was noted that out of 628 individuals, tribals were 111 and non-tribals, 517. Out of total tested, N=628, SCD homozygous status were found in 7 cases (Hb S+S electrophoresis pattern). In 87 cases sickle cell carrier status (Hb A+S electrophoresis pattern) were observed and in remaining 534 individuals, non-sickle cell status observed i.e. Hb A+A electrophoresis pattern. Based on this sickle cell prevalence observed for total tribal and non-tribal is 13.85% After classifying tribal Vs non-tribal population, 7 homozygous patients were found in non-tribal communities, 5 in Schedule caste, 1 in OBC and 1 in open category, there is no SCD patient found in tribal community. Out of 50 sickle cell carriers, 7 were found from tribal community and remaining all 80 belongs to non-tribal community. Out of which, 49 are from scheduled cast and 31 from OBC community. After studying sickle cell prevalence and gene frequency pattern, it is found that gene frequency gives more accurate status of sickle cell anaemia even in small population size, i.e. independent study of single village, as compared to estimation sickle cell anemia using sickle cell carrier prevalence method.

Prevalence of Risk Factors of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) Among Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) in the Intensive Area of Rayagada District of Odisha, India

The tribal population in India too have high rates of hypertension and other risk factors of NCDs. Rayagada district, situated in the southern part of Odisha is home to diversified communities including scheduled castes and scheduled tribes with about 57% of the tribal population. It’s hard-to-reach scattered geographical areas, most of these populations remain inaccessible to various benefits, information, education and communication activities. The study was a cross-sectional study conducted after the intuitional ethical approval. The study duration was from 1st May to 30th June 2022. A systematic random sampling method was used to collect the data from a calculated sample size of 3600 individuals. A predesigned and pretested questionnaire containing four sections used to collect the required data. The study tool was incorporated in Epicollect 5.0 and data was collected through android phones. A total of 3625 individuals were interviewed with 60.5% female subjects. Most (98%) were married and belonged to Hindu religion (97%). Majority (98%) of the respondents were BPL card holders. About 57 % were chewing tobacco and 26% were alcoholic. The prevalence of diabetes and hypertension was 2 % and 20 % respectively. More than 80% were physically active, 28% were under weight and 9 % were overweight. The education level was found to be very low that may be responsible for poor food choices. Higher tobacco consumption in the tribal community has a deleterious effect and more chances of getting non-communicable diseases.

Navigating the Impact of Conflict on Syria’s Ethnic, Religious and Tribal Communities (2011-2024): Towards Peace Formation

Navigating the Impact of Conflict on Syria’s Ethnic, Religious and Tribal Communities (2011-2024): Towards Peace Formation

Exploring the hidden mental health consequences of malaria beyond the fever.

Malaria morbidity has various presentations and the focus now shifts to uncommon signs and symptoms of malaria infection such as cognitive impairment to address the morbidity when the mortality declines. About 50% of children admitted to hospitals due to malaria experience neurological complications due to factors like low blood sugar, inflammation, elevated pressure, decreased oxygen levels, and excitotoxicity. Malaria during pregnancy negatively also impacts children's cognitive, behavioral, and executive function leading to neurodevelopmental delay due to increased susceptibility which can significantly affect maternal and child health, leading to higher rates of underestimated factors like anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Despite having the world's second-largest tribal population, India's indigenous and tribal communities and their mental health are less explored and less understood. Western psychological tools and neurocognitive assessment tools are not universally applicable, thus necessitating the development of tailored tools to investigate psychological or neurocognitive impairment. This paper has illuminated the hidden mental health consequences of malaria infection, emphasizing the prevalence, nature, and implications of psychological distress among affected individuals. The findings underscore the importance of recognizing and addressing these psychological consequences in the holistic management and prevention of malaria and its mental health consequences.

Nutritional characteristics of Stereospermum chelonoides (L.f.) DC., an underutilized edible wild fruit of dietary interest

Malnutrition and hunger is a serious global issue, however, wild fruits possess the potential of combatting it being rich in nutrients. Stereospermum chelonoides (L.f.) DC., commonly known as “Patala” in Ayurvedic text, is a large wild tree bearing edible, yet, underutilized fruits consumed by the locals in Western parts of India and neighboring countries. The present study focuses on the nutritional profile of S. chelonoides fruit along with quantification of bioactive constituents using RP-HPLC-PDA and evaluation of in-vitro anti-oxidant and, anti-microbial activity. The fruit was found rich in nutritional composition having protein (2.41 % ± 0.007), fibre (3.46 % ± 0.02) and carbohydrate (90.19 % ± 1.73) with energy value of 368.2 ± 3.94 Kcal/100g. The elemental analysis of fruit resulted in macronutrients Ca, Mg and Na and micronutrients Fe, Mn, Zn, and Cu in amounts comparable to common marketed fruits. The RP-HPLC-PDA analysis revealed the presence of six phenolic compounds in all 3 extracts made from the fruit in which highest amount are present in hydro-alcoholic extract. All the extracts exhibited potent antioxidant activity evaluated through DPPH assay and oxygen radical absorbing capacity (ORAC), with highest activity in hydro-alcoholic extract. All the analyzed extracts also exhibited potent inhibition, against four human pathogens namely Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Vibrio cholerae, Escherichia coli, and Shigella flexneri. Therefore, it is evident from the study that the fruit of S. chelonoides has immense potential as a nutraceutical supplement and may help in the management of nutrient deficiency and malnutrition among rural and tribal communities.

Critical Analysis of the Right to Health of Tribal Minorities - an Indian Perspective

India has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, but the country's health care system has not received the adequate funding or attention it needs to meet the convention's standards. Health and education are crucial to realizing children's rights, but to do so we must shift away from a welfare model. Special care must be taken to ensure the health of the newborn (survival), baby (immunizations, nutrition), and preschooler (infections, development). Completely functioning health care delivery systems, well executed programs, and comprehensive accountability. All children should have access to free preventative care and basic medical treatment. The disadvantaged need access to practical health literacy education. Because of a severe lack of access to medical care, the health of indigenous people is in a precarious state. Women and children in the neighbourhood are disproportionately affected by malnutrition, which is the leading cause of mortality. The indigenous tribal people of India still face significant obstacles in the health sector, despite India's 68 years of independence. These include a lack of education, the absence of even basic health care, and food poverty. Natural resources are dwindling as a direct consequence of increasing land grabs by corporations, which is wreaking havoc on indigenous communities that have no other means of subsistence. Unemployment among native/tribal youngsters is a major problem. Hence, it becomes important to evaluate the healthcare rights of tribal communities in India. This paper is an attempt to analyse the provision of Right to Health for the tribal communities. It will further argue, whether Right to Health should be explicitly considered as a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution of India.

Comparative study of sickling test, solubility test, and hemoglobin electrophoresis in sickle cell anemia

Abstract Background: Madhya Pradesh, a state in India, bears the highest number of sickle cell anemia (SCA) cases, particularly among its tribal communities. The diagnosis of suspected SCA cases involves utilizing several methods. The sickling test operates on the principle of hemoglobin S (HbS) polymerization upon deoxygenation. By contrast, the solubility test involves the reduction of HbS using sodium hydrosulfite, followed by precipitation of lysed red blood cells. Hemoglobin (Hb) electrophoresis identifies Hb variants based on their migration in an electric field. Our objective was to assess the efficacy of sickling and solubility tests as screening tools for detecting SCA, comparing them against capillary Hb electrophoresis, which is considered the gold standard. Materials and Methods: All individuals suspected of having SCA between 2022 and 2023 were enrolled in the study. Clinical information, peripheral blood smear analysis, sickling test, solubility test, and capillary Hb electrophoresis were conducted, and the results were compared. Results: Of 250 cases assessed, Hb electrophoresis identified 225 cases of SCA, resulting in a sickle cell disease to sickle cell trait (SCT) ratio of 1:1.36 and a male-to-female ratio of 1:1.33. The highest number of cases were observed in the age group from 21 to 30 years. Generalized weakness (77%) and abdominal pain (52%) were the most frequently reported symptoms. The sickling test demonstrated a sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy of 91.5%, 72%, and 89%, respectively, compared with Hb electrophoresis. The solubility test yielded values of 76.5%, 68%, and 75% for sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic accuracy, while peripheral smear analysis showed 36%, 25%, and 42%, respectively. Conclusion: The sickling test displayed superior sensitivity and diagnostic accuracy compared with the solubility test, with no significant disparity in specificity between these two methods. Notably, the solubility test exhibited a higher incidence of false-negative results for SCT. Therefore, the sickling test is the preferred screening method for SCA.

Assessing SDG 4 indicators in online and blended higher education within conflict zones: A case study of northern India's higher education institutions

Resilient higher education is fostered, and further assessed, by the United Nations through the metrics provided by Sustainable Development Goal 4, called indicators. These indicators serve as a yardstick to evaluate a country's success in sustainability. Concerningly, the recent scholarly work highlights the limitations associated with Sustainable Development Goal 4 indicators, including the associated political connotations and fuzziness. However, we note a dearth of attempts to unwrap the merit of Sustainable Development Goal 4 indicators in online and blended learning in higher education, specifically in conflict zones. This study aims to bridge this gap by exploring the challenges and opportunities presented by the current Sustainable Development Goal 4 indicators in evaluating online and blended learning in higher educational institutions in India's conflict-affected northern areas. Employing a needs assessment methodology, the research draws on data from two distinct sources: primary data from 3,353 learners obtained through a self-constructed questionnaire for higher education institutions in northern India and secondary data gleaned from international and national policy documents. The thematic analysis of results, underpinned by the barriers model, underscores significant concerns regarding the comprehensiveness, validity, and relevance of the prevailing SDG 4 indicators, particularly the Gross Enrolment Ratio and Gender Parity Index, in northern India. It is argued that these indicators fall short of accurately capturing the nuances of online and blended learning within the local contexts, thereby questioning their utility for such purposes. The study reveals that the Gross Enrolment Ratio is not successful in giving a complete picture of its variations by failing to reveal the political reasons behind its drop during emergency remote teaching in the northern conflict zones of India. Moreover, the Gender Parity Index is endowed with interpretative challenges, where despite an increased value being deemed affirmative for gender equity, its increase ironically highlights a new gender divide because of an increased dropout rate among male learners from tribal communities. Through the case of higher education institutions in J&K and Ladakh, the study further provides keywords which could bolster the effectiveness of the SDG 4 indicator framework by making it more responsive to the changing educational landscape, thus making it an indispensable tool in the hands of researchers and policy-makers. Consequently, this study positions itself at the forefront of scholarly efforts to critically re-evaluate and propose revisions to the SDG 4 indicators in light of the shifting teaching and learning paradigms.

Factor Structure and Reliability of Big Five Inventory: A Study on Indian Tribal Population

The Current study aimed to investigate the structural organization of the Big Five Personality Inventory developed by John & Srivastava. The study comprises of 140 tribal students belonging to various tribal communities and groups making a composition of Adi, Galo, Nyshii, and Apattani to be found mostly in the University’s premises. The primary data has been collected by administering a Big Five Personality Inventory. The reliability and factor structure of the inventory were measured. Among the total of 44 items, the total five major factors were extracted, representing only three main items in each factor with high factor loading, these five factors collectively accounted for 66.88% of total variance in personality traits on the sample of tribal students. The correlation matrix table revealed that extraversion exhibited strong inter correlations with agreeableness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

Diversity and Ethno-Mycopharmacological Insights of Medicinal Mushrooms of the Bangus Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India.

The present study was carried out in various regions of Jammu and Kashmir, India, for the diversity and pharmacology of wild mushrooms. The valley is bestowed with alpine meadows and dense coniferous forest. Because of its isolation, security concerns, and line of control, most of these locations either have been little investigated or are entirely undiscovered. During the intensive survey of various locations, 20 mushroom species were collected from the surveyed areas. The ethno-mycological information was gathered from tribal communities and local herbalists (hakims). It was observed that 16 species were used against cold, constipation, liver and skin disorders, digestion problems, wound healing, and the like. However, these medicinal mushrooms are losing their relevance, so there is an urgent need to explore and preserve this knowledge for future use as medicine.

Countering Cultural Hegemony: The Bharia Community in Central India

Researching with the Bharia in Central India was a rare opportunity as it is perhaps the only tribal community in the region who are not dispossessed from their habitat in Madhya Pradesh, the Indian province with the largest number of tribal people. Dominant debates rarely take cognisance of the perceptions of the tribal communities. The article tries to map the Bharia voices, their worldview and knowledge that counter the processes of hegemony thrust upon them by the state, the market and non-state players.

A Multidisciplinary Review of Emerging Research on Tribal Communities, Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods

A Multidisciplinary Review of Emerging Research on Tribal Communities, Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods

The Quality of Life among Tribal Communities Living in Western Ghats: An Exploratory Research

The Western Ghats (WG), also called Sahyadri, are a mountain range that covers 140,000 square kilometres and extends parallel to the western coast of the Indian Peninsula. The WG have been home to over fifty distinct tribes. The tribal community residing in the WG faces a multitude of obstacles, such as economic instability, low literacy rates, poor living conditions, limited political influence, and health-related issues. Quality of life (QOL) describes the well-being of a human’s life. This study aimed to investigate the QOL of tribal communities living in WG. The data were collected from the tribal settlement in the Ranni, Konni and Attapday forest division. This study was qualitative in nature and adopted exploratory research design and sampling design was purposive. The data collected for the study was through the single focus group discussions. 15 single focus group discussion were conducted. Each focus groups consisted with 12 participants, of which 6 were males and 6 were females. The data were analysed by thematic content analysis. This study proposed a model of quality of life; the model includes eight factors such as Social Relationship, Health, Work, Financial and Material Wellbeing, Belonging, Personal Safety, Quality of Environment, Emotional Wellbeing.

Indigenous Herbal Medicines used by Tribal Communities Across the Satpuda Mountain Ranges, India

Indigenous Herbal Medicines used by Tribal Communities Across the Satpuda Mountain Ranges, India

From Darkness To Light: Mobile Phone Apps, The Empowering Tools For Tribal Students And Community Of Chhattisgarh

India is one of the largest tribal countries in the world after Africa. According to the 2011 census of India, the tribal population is 8.6% of the total population of the country. They are all over the country in states like Jharkhand, Odisha Madhya Pradesh, Gujrat, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, and Chhattisgarh. Tribal society is characteristically distinguished from the mainstream by its culture, lifestyle, occupation, and alienation. With the increase in the development of today's information technology and wireless telecommunication networks, mobile devices have proliferated rapidly and become important tools for Terrible people. The use of M-Services and applications (apps) on mobile devices has become commonplace in people's everyday lives. Mobile applications are the gateway to the transfer of human knowledge. Learning is a continuous process and now the focus has completely shifted to eLearning. Thanks to mobile phones and various function-oriented apps, students can learn at their own pace and take their time understanding things because everything is just a click away. The integration of mobile devices into the teaching-learning process heralded a new era in education. It has made the teaching-learning process more interactive and hands-on. Quality education can be provided to anyone, anywhere. In general, implementing mobile phone applications and technologies can provide many benefits for a quality educational environment. The provision of education for all in India remains a distant dream, despite the significant government investment expended on it. This document covers the use of mobile phone applications, how to help the Indigenous community, especially students and the community of Chhattisgarh, and what steps the Chhattisgarh government has taken to uplift the educational system and empower tribal students and community with various mobile phone apps to bring the underprivileged from darkness to light.

Trajectories of Mizo tribal historiography

The British colonizers, while writing about Mizoram and Mizo history, stressed their achievements in uplifting the Mizo community. Christian missionaries from Wales landed in Mizoram after the British colonizers annexed the land. They also followed the British administrators’ patronizing way of writing Mizo history. They saw the Mizo people as savage, and unsaved who needed the Gospel. They viewed Mizo society as one that needed a complete transformation. The first-generation Mizo Christians, too, looked at Mizo society from the Western lens. That was because missionaries trained them to be as Western as possible. A significant shift in Mizo Christian historiography emerged in the 1990s, emphasizing that tribal communities accepted Jesus Christ not because of external factors such as the arrival of missionaries from a foreign country, but because God resides in their hearts and that the Holy Spirit inspired them to believe in Jesus Christ, whoever the agent was.

Cultural Interpretation as a Theological Task in Northeast India

Recently, there have been attempts to develop contextual (tribal) Bible reading. While giving priority to these efforts, there appears to be neglect for the cultural interpretation of tribal communities in Northeast India. In light of this reality, as an exegete, I would argue that there is a need to learn to interpret culture to relevantly interpret and translate the text in each context/society. As a case in point of cultural interpretation, an attempt will be made to read the presence and emergence of the Tangkhul confessing community as a text analogue and also as a point of reference for reading-interpreting culture.

Theology and politics in Northeast India: Interpreters in an evolving intellectual terrain

Theology from the northeast of India draws heavily from the cultural capital of its constituents. As an unintended consequence, tribal theology invokes a past that renders its theological discourse as rather distant from the evolving political economy of faith communities in the northeast of India. A turn from legislating what tribal theology is to interpreting the politics of tribal communities provides an important intervention. Interpreting politics as significations and management inevitably necessitates self-reflexivity to render an honest reading of theology in the northeast of India.

Policies to address the Covid-19 pandemic: Lessons learned from tribal policymakers

Background: The Covid-19 pandemic created many challenges for federal policymakers. However, American Indian Tribal policymakers also had to rely on their treaty relationship the United States and set policies to protect their sovereign nations. The Covid-19 pandemic was devastating to tribal communities and amplified many inequalities these communities already face.Methodology: In this study, we interviewed Tribal policymakers using a phenomenological approach to examine tribal Covid-19 policies enacted and the governmental actions taken in response to the pandemic. Using a purposive sampling method, 11 interviews were included in the analysis.Discussion: These interviews represented 10 tribes across five culture areas. Ten themes were identified, including four related to issues to be addressed at the start of the pandemic and six associated with Covid-19 policy development and implementation. The findings from this study are intended to describe the ways in which some tribes operated within their infrastructures to keep their members safe.Conclusion: The Covid-19 virus had a devastating impact on American Indian communities. This study can aid in the generation of evidence-based information that can influence the development of policies regarding future outbreaks and pandemics.

Regional disparities in the socio-economic development of tribal communities in Nashik District: A geographical analysis

Regional disparities in the socio-economic development of tribal communities in Nashik District: A geographical analysis