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can you give me a short note on adivasis
Adivasis is the collective name used for the many indigenous peoples of India. Adivasis, as their name reflects, are the earliest inhabitants of the subcontinent. The term Adivasi derives from the Hindi word ‘adi' which means of earliest times or from the beginning and ‘vasi' meaning inhabitant or resident, and it was coined in the 1930s.Officially Adivasis are termed scheduled tribes, but this is a legal and constitutional term, which differs from state to state and area to area, and therefore excludes some groups who might be considered indigenous.Adivasis are not a homogeneous group; there are over 200 distinct peoples speaking more than 100 languages, and varying greatly in ethnicity and culture. According to the official Census held in 2001, Adivasis constitute 8 per cent of the nation's total population, over 84 million people.

There are reserved seats for scheduled tribes in Parliament and the state legislatures. In the two houses of Parliament, the Lok Sabha and the Rajiya Sabha, 7 per cent of the seats were reserved for members of scheduled tribes, and similar representation occurs in the state assemblies in proportion to the percentage of scheduled tribes in the state's population.


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