The communication by Singh et al. on single nucleotide polymorphisms among the Jarawas of the Andaman Islands appears to be a purely academic endeavour. The evident outcome of the study is the discovery of polymorphism in two genes. The authors have not elaborated on the significance of the discovery for the Jarawa populations investigated. It is also difficult to comprehend how any population genetics-based epidemiological study could be undertaken without information on the parent-offspring relationships in the samples.