The story so far: On April 26, an organisation of five “advanced” tribes in Nagaland set the Neiphiu Rio-led government a 30-day deadline to revise the job reservation policy for the State’s Backward Tribes (BTs). The government formed a panel on September 22 to examine the job quota policy, but the five-tribe body found fault with its nomenclature.

What is the job reservation policy?

Almost four years after it attained statehood in December 1963, Nagaland introduced a policy to reserve 80% of State government jobs for all indigenous Scheduled Tribes. The government identified 11 BTs in 1977 and apportioned for them what came to be known as “reservation within a reservation”. In August 2024, Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio told the 60-member Nagaland Assembly that 37% of non-technical and no

See Full Page