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This research article examines the contest between indigenous forest-dwelling communities and settler colonial policy in post-Partition central India. According to official estimates, from 1961–71 the population of indigenous communities declined by nearly 50% in Dandakaranya within central India even as overall the population grew by a large margin during the same period. Despite perceptions of India as a post-colony committed to decolonization, this article examines how this state project, one of the earliest acts of governmentality, was deeply implicated in a settler colonial logic of elimination. Following the mass migration of Partition refugees in 1947 across newly demarcated borders, the Indian government earmarked Dandakaranya Forest as the site of a refugee resettlement project for lower-caste Partition refugees from East Bengal (now Bangladesh). Drawing on Lorenzo Veracini's notion of 'probationary settlers' as exogenous others without prior claims to land, refugees are understood within this argument as probationary settlers reliant on the state for their survival. Rather than narrating the biography of the state through its various experts and institutions, this paper foregrounds the perspective of the marginalized on their environment: displaced forest-dwelling indigenous communities and lower-caste (Dalit) refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper uses illustrations from rural India and Bangladesh to develop a critical analysis of practices and experiences of poverty often overlooked in development policies. It challenges the principle measurement, calculative rationality and static representation in anti-poverty interventions that present poverty as a 'problem' to be resolved. It draws on poststructuralist ideas to express poverty differently and shift from problem-solving to problematisation. Drawing on the concept of 'rhizome' it highlights the connectivity, heterogeneity and multiplicity of poverty. Examples from interviews and photo diaries illustrate manifold poverty as a combination of heterogeneous activities, objects and affects that complicate development ethics and challenge the logic of reason in existing policies. The paper explores improvisation, experimentation, hope and repetition as mechanisms for critically evaluating aquaculture-led development and attending to overlooked objects, uncertain outcomes and untold stories of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study examines the possible predatory journals in Library and Information Science research in India, including the affiliation status of the authors publishing in those predatory journals, frequency of returning authors, and country-wise distribution of authors. The paper used Beall's list to find out the predatory journals in LIS published from India. Publication trends, affiliations of authors, and the status of the 22 LIS journals under the study were critically analyzed. The result shows that the predatory journals were diminishing slowly; in 2016, there were eight active journals, while in 2021, it was reduced to four journals. Similarly, the publication trends show that the highest number of articles (398) was published in the year 2015, and it was only 66 articles in 2020. It is revealed that academics hailing from state universities (42.88%) are the highest contributors to the predatory journals, followed by professionals from government colleges (16.76%). The results indicate that predatory publishing was rampant in the early years but declined gradually. Researchers from India have published the most articles, totaling 1760 (93%), followed by those from Nigeria (64, 3.3%), Bangladesh (10), and Saudi Arabia (eight articles). It is also revealed that 21.66% (n = 438) are returning authors who have published more than one article in the sample journals. The paper discusses the role of the government and especially the University Grants Commission (UGC) in curbing the menace of predatory publishing. The authors also discuss the possible role of library professionals in stopping the plague of predatory publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rohingya experiences of displacement and refuge are heavily gendered. Sexual and gender-based violence have been used as weapons against Rohingya women, men, girls and boys in Myanmar for decades. Trafficking and exploitation are rife on the flight out of the country, and host states such as India present their own gendered challenges to family survival and individual coping. In this paper, we examine how some of those violent and disruptive experiences have affected gender roles for individuals and families as they have fled Myanmar (often more than once) and sought refuge in India via Bangladesh. We present new insight into the dynamic subjectivity of Rohingya women as we show how, contrary to dominant depictions of passive victimhood, many have lead family migration across borders, taken up NGO/community leadership roles, or made the best 'home' possible within the limitations of the host context. This is because personal and family agency is sensitive to transitional opportunities and threats—i.e., gender norms of home and host contexts, interactions with host communities, and trust relations with NGOs, to name a few. Crucially, these social practices and experiences are not static or linear; they span generations and sprawling geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tasks of documenting and narrating stories of climate change and border environments have become increasingly urgent in recent years, and discussions around effective approaches to environmental storytelling have intensified accordingly. The film Char... The No Man's Island (2012), directed by Sourav Sarangi, is a noteworthy example of a work that seeks to represent one such unstable environment that exists on the border between India and Bangladesh and to explore the daily lives of the beings who inhabit it. Although the documentary has a specific regional focus, its scope is far from limited, as the film examines various dimensions of life in this border environment as well as the historical and political factors that have led to the current realities of the space and the communities established there. In this paper, I examine how Sarangi's inclusion of a multitude of distinct human and non-human perspectives throughout the film signals a move towards a form of environmental storytelling grounded in the notion of a collective, wherein narrative agency is distributed amongst multiple entities rather than invested in a single individual. Moreover, the paper argues that the usage of these various perspectives also enables Char to depict alternate temporalities and experiences of time which contrast heavily with ideas of linear time and progress and invites audiences to consider the multifaceted temporal and spatial realities of life in a precarious border environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of COVID-19 on shopping behavior in two neighboring developing economies: Bangladesh and India. While the previous studies investigating the impact of COVID-19 on shopping behavior have relied on Revealed Preference (RP) data, this paper combines RP and Stated Preference (SP) data to develop joint RP-SP discrete choice models. This makes it possible to quantify the relative impact of the situational contexts on the choice of shopping modes of households and to capture the associated heterogeneity arising from the characteristics of the households. Further, comparison of the data and the estimated model parameters of the two countries with substantial socio-cultural similarities provide insights about how differences in the state of e-commerce can lead to different levels of inertia in continuing the pre-COVID behavior. The results will be useful to planners and policymakers for predicting the shopping modes in different future scenarios and formulating effective restriction measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The death penalty has been the subject of controversy for a long time. South Asian countries have found themselves with this controversy by acquiring an ambivalent approach towards the death penalty. Out of eight South Asian countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan retain the death penalty law, and firmly believe that the death penalty can deter people from committing future crimes, whereas Sri Lanka and Maldives have chosen to retain the death penalty law but have abolished it in practice. Conversely, Nepal and Bhutan are the only two countries that have abolished death penalty both in law and practice. In this context, this comparative study of death penalty trials explores the approach taken by the judiciary of two South Asian jurisdictions, Bangladesh and India, towards the death penalty. This paper utilizes the findings of two original empirical research projects that explored judges' opinions on the retention and administration of the death penalty in both jurisdictions. Amnesty International death penalty reports along with the case judgements are used, which helped to portray the true approach and flaws in the death penalty trials in both the jurisdictions. The paper will assess the death penalty trials and approach of the different stakeholders in the trial to highlight the distinct approaches taken by the two jurisdictions towards the death penalty. The paper argues that in both countries there is inconsistency in sentencing, the social cry for justice is prioritized over convicts' rights and, from judges to legal representatives, all the stakeholders involved in a criminal trial hold a convictive approach, making a criminal justice system which presumes justice is served by awarding the death penalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A series of countries have focused on shipbuilding public policies, as it is commonly considered a deliberate industry and influences employment levels in many regions. Establishing key performance indicators can be a challenge to shipbuilding policymakers. This paper suggests an approach to this issue, based on three different MCDM techniques: the fuzzy DEMATEL, the Fuzzy ANP, and the MOORA. This approach makes it achievable to estimate performance and competitiveness, considering 25 different variables comprising four different viewpoints of a balanced scorecard approach. These dimensions include finance, customer, internal process, and learning and growth aspects. The methodology is applied to the analysis of the active shipyards of the Bay of Bengal Basin countries. Our main findings indicate that shipyards which are effective in 'customer' variables perform higher performance, while variables constituting the 'learning and growth' dimension demonstrate lower impact on it. Additionally, the dimensions of 'finance' and 'customer' show uttered impacts on the other dimensions, while 'learning and growth' has no impact on the other perspectives of the balanced scorecard. Through this methodology, researchers, practitioners, and policymakers might acquire a penetrating overview into the drivers of the global shift in shipbuilding industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the geopolitical factors that have been the catalyst for the Rohingya crisis, with special attention on the roles of China and India. It then situates those views through 20 in-depth interviews of informants from Bangladesh who are experts in South and Southeast Asian politics. Bangladesh has borne the brunt of accommodating the fleeing Rohingyas and is currently bearing the ensuing socio-economic costs. The research findings suggest that as a result of Chinese and Indian strategic interest in Myanmar and competition for regional dominance, the Rohingya have become the meat in the sandwich, and the 'Rohingya crisis' has been propelled into a status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh and India exchanged all of their 162 border enclaves in 2015 after 70 years of protracted negotiations. This paper offers an explanation as to why these enclaves were exchanged and why it took so long for the exchange to be executed. In so doing, I offer the concept of "symbolic spaces" to demonstrate that in postcolonial South Asia, enclaves gained oversized significance in nationalistic and territorial discourses. Such elevated significance effectively turned them into symbols of nationalism and territoriality, which played the major role in both their existence and their exchange. In explaining the exchange, I also contend that, although rare, states may exchange territories if it serves significant geopolitical and geo‐economic interests for the parties involved and if the exchange can be portrayed as a victory for the nation. This paper explains why the border enclaves of India and Bangladesh were exchanged. In so doing, it argues that these were symbolic spaces that overpassed their significance in the nationalistic discourses of these two states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers and policymakers began to pay attention to the expected number of out-of-school children and emerging learning crises in developed countries, where self-isolation, social distancing, and access to education through technology are possible on a wide scale. Within the region of South Asia, and among the impoverished communities of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, this situation is quite the opposite, where millions of people still live below the poverty line, and technology-driven education is not yet a privilege. Despite the utmost commitment to provide free and quality education to all, the three nation-states prioritised healthcare over other businesses, delaying the policy response to the educational and learning crises. In this paper, the authors examine the policy responses from each country and conclude that inequities are not being adequately addressed, and that remote learning initiatives are not producing comparable results to prepandemic learning. The authors suggest that to make education accessible, equitable, and to improve student learning outcomes, the countries need to invest in school leader capacity building, and strengthening of the technology infrastructure and resources [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Three studies in India and Bangladesh use pro-WEAI to examine empowerment impacts of agricultural interventions and labor market changes. • Pro-WEAI shows potential in detecting empowerment impacts within the project lifespan. • Findings suggest the need for intentionality in designing women's empowerment projects. • It is important to collect data on both women and men to track progress toward both women's empowerment and gender equality. This introduction to a special section describes how a recently developed measure, the project-level Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (pro-WEAI) can be used to assess empowerment impacts of agricultural development interventions in India and Bangladesh as well as broader changes in rural labor markets. The special section comprises three papers. The first examines the impact of membership in self-help groups in five states in rural India on women's and men's empowerment and gender equality. The second presents experimental evidence from a pilot project in Bangladesh that provided trainings in agricultural extension, nutrition behavior change communication, and gender sensitization to husbands and wives together. The third investigates changes in women's roles within the jute value chain in the Southern Delta region of Bangladesh as household members migrate out of the study area and the availability of male labor declines. Although these papers focus on Bangladesh and India, pro-WEAI can be applied to impact assessments of agricultural development projects more generally. The three papers show both the usefulness of this new measure in detecting changes in empowerment indicators within the lifespan of a project and the value of having explicit empowerment objectives in agricultural development projects. The papers also demonstrate the value of having data on both men and women so that project designers can be more intentional about including both of them and monitoring outcomes for both to promote more gender equitable outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As Bangladesh, India and Nepal progress towards visceral leishmaniasis (VL) elimination, it is important to understand the role of asymptomatic Leishmania infection (ALI), VL treatment relapse and post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL) in transmission. Methodology/ Principal Finding: We reviewed evidence systematically on ALI, relapse and PKDL. We searched multiple databases to include studies on burden, risk factors, biomarkers, natural history, and infectiveness of ALI, PKDL and relapse. After screening 292 papers, 98 were included covering the years 1942 through 2016. ALI, PKDL and relapse studies lacked a reference standard and appropriate biomarker. The prevalence of ALI was 4–17-fold that of VL. The risk of ALI was higher in VL case contacts. Most infections remained asymptomatic or resolved spontaneously. The proportion of ALI that progressed to VL disease within a year was 1.5–23%, and was higher amongst those with high antibody titres. The natural history of PKDL showed variability; 3.8–28.6% had no past history of VL treatment. The infectiveness of PKDL was 32–53%. The risk of VL relapse was higher with HIV co-infection. Modelling studies predicted a range of scenarios. One model predicted VL elimination was unlikely in the long term with early diagnosis. Another model estimated that ALI contributed to 82% of the overall transmission, VL to 10% and PKDL to 8%. Another model predicted that VL cases were the main driver for transmission. Different models predicted VL elimination if the sandfly density was reduced by 67% by killing the sandfly or by 79% by reducing their breeding sites, or with 4–6y of optimal IRS or 10y of sub-optimal IRS and only in low endemic setting. Conclusion/ Significance: There is a need for xenodiagnostic and longitudinal studies to understand the potential of ALI and PKDL as reservoirs of infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's crowded and water scarce world dispute regarding water sharing is ineluctable. Bangladesh and India, the two friendly neighboring countries of South Asia, are not an exception to it. Among the disputes between these two countries, the most important is the dispute concerning water sharing. They share 54 rivers between them and the main rivers are the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Meghna and Teesta. India as an upper riparian state always shows an unwillingness or reluctance to share the water of the rivers equitably and reasonably. Moreover, India follows the policy to control the natural flows of the international watercourse by constructing dams, installing power plants and by diverting the natural course of rivers without notifying the lower riparian country Bangladesh. As a result, there is a steady reduction of water flow in Bangladesh and during the lean season rivers become waterless. The aim of my paper is to assess these situations of water disputes under international law especially the water dispute concerning Teesta. The assessment will cover the principles of transboundary water resources management as envisaged in the customary international law; Helsinki Rules 1966; UN water Course Convention 1997 and judicial decisions in cases regarding international watercourses. In addition, the Ganges Water Treaty has also been taken into account. While concluding I have put my words for co-operation rather than confrontation to solve the Teesta water dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partitions are based on two fundamental assumptions: identity groups exist that can be located, named and categorized, and these categories are attached to distinct territories. Drawing on the Partition of British India, this paper analyses how the differences between the categories “Hindu” and “Muslim” were developed through narratives and events such as the creation of maps and censuses, the emergence of religious revivalist movements, and the use of violence. The article argues that the perception of sharp boundaries between what are termed “territorial groups of meaning” is the result of these events and narratives, not the cause of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]