South Asia has an area of approximately 5.221 million km. According to the United Nations, 1.6 billion inhabitants live in the region. The South Asian population has a mixture of ethnic and tribal groups. They practice different religions and believe in different faiths. The tribal population are also called ‘tribes’ and have been noted as the ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ and sometimes even ‘un-civilised’ groups of people. The majority of these groups in the South Asian region depend on agriculture as their main source of livelihoods. Contemporary societies of South Asia have witnessed plethora of issues in terms of its social, economic and political frames or discourses. The discourse on rural and tribal communities have further shown the way to mapping inherent identity questions, practices, and thus debates on sociological engagement of these social groups is necessitated. An engagement of social groups is necessary to understand their diverse social and economic issues and dynamics of development discourses of South Asia. Further, a quest for sustainability of livelihoods is an overarching phenomenon of the development agencies of the state and non-state actors. Keeping pace with the developmental challenges in the south Asian economies, there is a necessity to understand the livelihood experiences and hurdles faced by the tribal communities in the rural areas. The various sub-themes in the panel will be: 1. Mapping the Oral histories of Tribal people, rural communities and livelihood experiences in South Asia. 2. Indigenous art and culture; folk art, Rituals and other practices, folk music, local dance and paintings as cultural manifestations of tribal and rural communities. 3. State laws, policies and government agencies; challenges faced by the rural and tribal communities in South Asia and role of the non-profit organizations in the rural and tribal regions. 4. Educational and employment challenges faced by the tribal and rural population, the nature of labor practices found in the rural areas, 5. Government plans and programs and their implementation strategies for the development of the rural and tribal population and other issues, like the SEZs (Socio-Economic Zones), their ecological impact on the tribal and rural people, impact of the mining industry in the tribal belt etc.