Consider the following pairs : Tribe State 1. Limboo Limbu : Sikkim 2. Karbi : Himachal 3. Dongaria Kondh : Odisha 4. Bonda : Tamil Nadu Which of the above pairs are correctly matched?

Option A is correct: pairs 1 and 3 are matched correctly, and pairs 2 and 4 are not.

• Pair 1 (Limboo/Limbu, Sikkim): correct. The Limbu is a Scheduled Tribe of Sikkim, and also of eastern Nepal and parts of Darjeeling and Assam.
• Pair 2 (Karbi, Himachal Pradesh): wrong. The Karbi are concentrated in Karbi Anglong and West Karbi Anglong in Assam. Himachal's tribes are Gaddi, Gujjar, Kinnaura, Lahaula and Swangla, among others.
• Pair 3 (Dongaria Kondh, Odisha): correct. They are a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) living on the Niyamgiri hills of Kalahandi and Rayagada districts. Their community-forest-rights case is a standard Mains example.
• Pair 4 (Bonda, Tamil Nadu): wrong. The Bonda is a PVTG of Malkangiri district in Odisha. Tamil Nadu's PVTGs are the Kattunayakan, Kotas and Irulas, among others.

The concept tested is the distribution of tribes and the PVTG category, which the government created in 2006 from the earlier Primitive Tribal Groups. For Mains, PVTG development and forest-rights issues in Odisha and Chhattisgarh are the natural connection.

Trap: Candidates often accept a tribe-state pair because the tribe is famous in the region. Check each pair against the state where the tribe is actually concentrated. Bonda and Karbi are the two pairs most often mismatched by association.