<P> The biggest threat to the Jarawa in recent years came from the building of the Great Andaman Trunk Road through their newer western forest homeland in the 1970s . In late 1997, some Jarawa started coming out of their forest to visit nearby settlements for the first time . Within months a serious measles epidemic broke out . In 2006 the Jarawa suffered another outbreak of measles . No deaths were reported . </P> <P> The impact of the highway, in addition to widespread encroachment, poaching and commercial exploitation of Jarawa lands, caused a lawsuit to be filed with the Calcutta High Court, which has jurisdiction over the islands . The case escalated to the Supreme Court of India as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL). The Society for Andaman and Nicobar Ecology, the Bombay Natural History Society and Pune - based Kalpavriksh joined in the petition, resulting in a landmark High Court judgment in 2001, directing the administration to take steps to protect the Jarawa from encroachment and contact, as well as preemptively ruling out any program that involved relocating the Jarawa to a new reservation . Planned extensions of the highway were also prohibited by the court . However, the Light of Andamans editorialised that the changes to the Jarawa were likely irreversible and should have been assessed more thoroughly before the road was built . </P> <P> 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 . </P> <P> In 2006, the Indian travel company Barefoot had established a resort 3 km distant from the Jarawa reserve . The development was the subject of a recent court case brought by a small section of Andaman authorities who wanted to stop the resort, and appealed against a Calcutta High Court ruling allowing it to continue . Barefoot won that case . </P>

Information about tribes of andaman and nicobar islands