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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]

Historic links, economic interactions and geostrategic interests make Pakistan, India and Bangladesh vital to one another. The geographic conditions, economic interactions, trade links, ethnocultural proximity and historical linkages provide a plethora of opportunities for close, cordial and cooperative relations among the three countries. This study discusses the current rebirth of economic relations between Pakistan and India and the shift of Pakistani investors to Bangladesh. The extant literature presents a profound discussion on the political, geographical, historical, economic and legal relationships between these countries. However, this paper addresses some other theoretical and economic aspects, such as investors’ behaviour towards investment, and financial integration, which are imperative where economic and trade ties are concerned. The paper employs the archival method of reviewing related literature (theoretical and empirical) and organising and presenting some questions for future investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: This paper explores the politics of community making at the India–Bangladesh border by examining the public and private narratives of history and belonging in a Bangladeshi enclave—a sovereign piece of Bangladesh completely territorially surrounded by India. Drawing on framings of political society, this paper argues that understanding populations at the margins of South Asia and beyond requires attention to two processes: first, to the ways that para-legal activities are part and parcel of daily life; and second, to the strategies through which these groups construct themselves as moral communities deserving of inclusion within the state. Border communities often articulate narratives of dispossession, exceptionality, and marginalization to researchers and other visitors—narratives that are often unproblematically reproduced in academic treatments of the border. However, such articulations mask both the complicated histories and quotidian realities of border life. This paper views these articulations as political projects in and of themselves. By reading the more hidden histories of life in this border enclave, this article reconstructs the notion of borders as experienced by enclave residents themselves. It shows the ways that the politics of the India–Bangladesh border are constitutive of (and constituted by) a range of fractures and internal boundaries within the enclave. These boundaries are as central to forging community—to articulating who belongs and why—as are more public narratives that frame enclave residents as victims of confused territorial configurations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Purpose – The textiles and clothing sector is one of India's most important economic sectors, next to the agriculture sector in terms of industrial output and employment, providing employment to more than 30 million people. Many studies predict that India will get a significant share of the world textiles and clothing trade due to the advantage of cheap labor and other factor resources but India's slower growth rate, as compared to other low-cost competitors, indicates otherwise. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the comparative advantage of India and Bangladesh for the clothing sector in the world export trade with the help of Balassa's index of Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA). The study highlights the shift in comparative advantage for India and Bangladesh between two periods. The study also points out constraints restricting the growth of export share of India in world market and offers suggestions to policy makers for enhancing India's export share in the world clothing trade. Design/methodology/approach – RCA indices have been calculated for various clothing product categories (under Harmonized System) up to four digit classification with the help of Balassa's relative measure for India and Bangladesh. Tables have been prepared for India and Bangladesh, highlighting products having comparatively higher revealed comparative advantage. For calculation of RCA indices, the export data have been taken from "UN Comtrade", an electronic database of the United Nations and from the database of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Further, Spearman rank correlation coefficient has been calculated for analyzing the changes over the period 1995-2003 for India and Bangladesh. Findings – Findings reveal that the number of products for which India enjoyed the comparative advantage increased from 23 products to 25 products between 1995 and 2003 and for Bangladesh, this number increased from 21 products to 29 products between 1995 and 2003. Clothing exports of India and Bangladesh are classified on the basis of comparative advantage at the HS 4-digit level for the years 1995 and 2003 and the comparative position is given on the basis of a measure of structural change in exports of India and Bangladesh. The products in which India and Bangladesh have comparative advantage in garment exports are highlighted. Originality/value – This paper has calculated and compared revealed comparative advantage indices over a period of time up to four digits classification of HS product categories. Also, this paper highlights constraints, and offer suggestions which would be helpful to exporters and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her book Harmony Ideology Laura Nader demonstrates that dispute resolution practices within minority ethnically distinct communities may serve not only a quasi-legal, but also a political, hegemonic, function. National governance structures and relations between the state and non-state entities provide a critical context for understanding dispute resolution practices within such communities. This paper examines how the historical legal and social 'othering' of a tribal minority, the Santal, in India and Bangladesh has created two opposing counter-hegemonic strategies, manifest in the people's dispute resolution practices. The paper begins by exploring the historical backdrop of the Santal's exclusion and subordination in the two countries. The paper then examines disputing strategies to assess how dispute processes act as a mirror reflecting back this exclusion, reforming the nuances of separation as a symbol of defiance. My fieldwork data shows that strategies of disputing are closely linked with the spatial proximity of and perceived locality of oppression. Inward looking strategies that promote harmony and re-enforce minority hegemonies act as strategies of resistance where an oppressor takes the form of a distant and untouchable state or power elite. But where the politics of struggle is local and immediate disputing turns outward and confrontation replaces harmony as a counter-hegemonic strategy. [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]

Abstract: Conservation agriculture practices are being advocated to help sustain crop productivity gains and secure environmental sustainability in the Trans-Gangetic Plains, India’s Green Revolution heartland. The paper illustrates the use of village surveys as a quasi-quantitative system analysis tool to derive implications for agricultural research and development. Drawing from village surveys in 170 communities, the paper assesses current crop residue management practices in Punjab and Haryana’s rice–wheat, basmati–wheat and non-rice–wheat cropping systems. The prevalence of wheat as the winter crop implies an intensive collection, trading and use of wheat straw as basal feed for dairy livestock; which contrasts with the diverse crop residue management of the monsoon crops. The increased use of combine harvesters has spurred the rapid advent of mechanical wheat straw reapers whereas the bulk of combine harvested rice straw is burned in situ. Present crop residue management practices are largely incompatible with year-round mulch retention despite significant biomass production. The research and development community faces the challenge of evening out straw use and management over seasons to ensure at least partial residue retention if its calls for conservation agriculture in this important sub-region are to succeed. The paper also reiterates the worrying decline of groundwater tables associated with the rice–wheat system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Specification effects in terms of how technology options are contrasted can introduce bias in impact assessment. In a companion paper we evaluated the on-farm impacts of zero tillage (ZT) wheat as a resource-conserving technology in the rice–wheat systems of India''s Haryana State and Pakistan''s Punjab province [Erenstein, O., Farooq, U., Malik, R.K., Sharif, M., 2008. On-farm impacts of zero tillage wheat in South Asia''s rice–wheat systems. Field Crop Res. 105, 240–252]. The underlying field work surveyed plots of full adopters (only ZT plots), partial adopters (ZT and conventional tillage [CT] plots on same farm) and non-adopters (only CT plots). The companion paper assumes that the comparison between the ZT plots of full plus partial adopters and CT plots of partial adopters is the least-biased assessment of ZT''s on-farm impact. Here we revisit this underlying assumption and draw on complementary farm survey findings to illustrate the extent of specification effects in the assessment of on-farm impacts of ZT wheat in the same study areas. The study thereby distinguishes between three contrasts between ZT and CT within the same dataset: (1) plain contrast (all plots of adopters and non-adopters); (2) adopter-only contrast (full and partial adopters only, as used in Erenstein et al. [Erenstein, O., Farooq, U., Malik, R.K., Sharif, M., 2008. On-farm impacts of zero tillage wheat in South Asia''s rice–wheat systems. Field Crop Res. 105, 240–252]); (3) pair-wise contrast (partial adopters only). Proceeding from type 1 to type 3 comparisons the number of observations decrease but this is compensated by an increasing ability to control for variation. The ability of type 3 comparisons to pick up relatively small but significant differences is an important consideration in farm survey impact assessment. However, there is also an increase in partial adoption bias and further follow-up studies are needed to understand the implications of this. The comparisons show that the ZT effects on savings for diesel, tractor time and cost for wheat cultivation are particularly robust. In Haryana ZT''s positive implications for yield and the other financial indicators were also statistically robust, but in Punjab these were sensitive to specification effects. Particularly sensitive to specification effects were the ZT effects on the productivity of applied water in both sites. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In light of the new cooperative water development agreements in South Asia since 1996 and, in particular, the 1996 Ganges Waters Treaty between India and Bangladesh, this paper explores the geopolitical obstacles to cooperation between states in the joint development of large-scale river systems and current opportunities for successful development. The general problems of cooperation faced by the riparian states which share successive rivers are examined with reference to the geopolitical obstacles to cooperation in the Bengal delta since the Partition of the Indian subcontinent through which India and Pakistan gained Independence as separate states in 1947. Against the background of repeated attempts to resolve water-sharing issues between India and East Pakistan and its successor state, Bangladesh, this paper concludes that for cooperation to succeed contemporary large-scale river development has to meet a wide range of criteria which go beyond conventional engineering or economic cost-benefit analyses to include geopolitical criteria. These range from global-scale environmental concerns to micro-scale issues of mutual regional benefit. This paper proposes a major new development on the Brahmaputra and Ganges which the authors argue could break the log-jam of a zero-sum game approach to surface water development in the Bengal delta. Unlike most large-scale dam-building proposals, the barrage construction outlined would cause negligible population displacement, and making maximum use of existing river channels would minimize the environmental impacts associated with the large canal or dam construction envisaged in earlier Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM) schemes. Yet the paper also recognizes that while such a proposal could bring economic, environmental and political advantages to all users in the GBM basin, new thinking on the management of international rivers is less in favour of supply-side solutions, and the case would need to be... [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]

This paper seeks to answer the question of how Muslim women interpret and negotiate religion in order to realise their reproductive aspirations. A close reading of lived experiences of 32 Muslim women from a varied educational background yields a wider perspective of the different interpretations of reproductive norms employed by adherents of the same religion (Islam), situated in two countries (India/Bangladesh) and group (majority/minority) contexts. Further, this comparative study yields a deeper understanding of agency that is employed by Muslim participants in each country. Muslim women – both in India and Bangladesh – are not passive followers of religious norms, but have agency to bring change in their own life and take an active role in planning their family, thereby transgressing religious norms in reproductive matters. Muslim women in India exercise their agency by adopting sterilisation – a method proscribed by Islam – without the knowledge of their significant others. Muslim women in Bangladesh use their agency by making a flexible interpretation of Islam in reproductive matters. A lesson learned from this comparative study is the need to remove barriers that prevent the adoption of contraceptives by Muslim minorities in India and to design family planning programmes that takes into account their religious needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the demand for fresh water has increased over the years, the conflicts between water-sharing countries have also been on the rise. Many countries, such as Bangladesh in Asia, depend upon water originating from outside their national borders and hence do not have any control in the headwaters and large part of the watershed management of their rivers. Being militarily and economically weaker than its neighbours, it cannot influence their watershed management policies. Consequently, it suffers from both floods and water scarcity. This paper looks at the long-standing conflict between Bangladesh and India with regard to the sharing of water of the River Ganges. It discusses the water quantity and quality problems faced by Bangladesh and its inability to negotiate an equitable deal with India. In order to reduce the water-sharing conflict between Bangladesh and India, a multi-national watershed management approach is required. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early surveys showed people of India and its neighbors to be highly susceptible to periodontitis. This was based on the early surveys which estimated a higher prevalence. Aim: This paper reviews the prevalence of periodontitis in India and Bangladesh and attempts to find out why the populations of the Indian subcontinent were considered more susceptible to periodontitis. Settings and design: Review of periodontitis prevalence studies on the Indian and Bangladeshi population. Methods and material: After identifying articles from Pub Med, DAOJ and hand searching, the epidemiology of periodontitis is reviewed. Results and conclusion: This review identifies that very few studies have been done on representative population. Yet it can be certainly concluded that there is a high prevalence of periodontitis in the adults and the economically weak population which can be reduced by adopting preventive public health strategies. Conclusions: Standardized population based studies in a representative population with a robust design to identify the true prevalence of periodontitis is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Poverty maps are an increasingly popular mode of visualizing the spatial dimension of poverty. They help guide priority-setting and target poverty-alleviation interventions. The utility of poverty maps can be enhanced by spatially disaggregating the underlying causes of poverty. One promising approach explored in this paper is the use of livelihood assets – natural, physical, human, social and financial – the building blocks of sustainable livelihoods. We illustrate the approach by mapping and contrasting poverty and livelihood assets within the Indian Indo-Gangetic Plains drawing on district-level indicators and livelihood asset-based principal components. The relatively low poverty incidence in the north-western plains is associated with an overall favorable livelihood asset base, particularly pronounced for natural and financial capitals. There is a marked gradient with poverty increasing eastwards, reflecting a similarly marked decline in livelihood assets. The overall unfavorable livelihood asset base in the mid-Gangetic Plains of Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh provides a particularly challenging spatial poverty trap. The maps and regional contrasts of poverty and livelihood assets provide a foundation for future research and development work and reiterate the need for cross-sectoral and inter-disciplinary approaches. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The problem of arsenic pollution of groundwater used for domestic water supplies is now well recognised in Bangladesh, India and some other countries of South and South-east Asia. However, it has recently become apparent that arsenic-polluted water used for irrigation is adding sufficient arsenic to soils and rice to pose serious threats to sustainable agricultural production in those countries and to the health and livelihoods of affected people. This paper reviews the nature of those threats, taking into account the natural sources of arsenic pollution, areas affected, factors influencing arsenic uptake by soils and plants, toxicity levels and the dietary risk to people consuming arsenic-contaminated rice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]