Word: indianness
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...Privately, BSF officers admit that the ban makes little sense; dozens of Indian citizens are killed every year while trying to earn the fee of about $22 for getting a cow across. (The animals can eventually be sold for as much as $900 each.) Legalizing the trade would reduce the border violence and open a new stream of tax revenue. But few on the border expect that to happen in a majority-Hindu country. "Which government is going to allow the export of cows for slaughter?" Mitra asks. "That would just be political suicide...
...Cows account for about half the illegal trade; Indian government rations of wheat, rice and sugar sold on the black market in Bangladesh, as well as cough syrup (used as an intoxicant across the border), account for the rest. Altogether, this informal trade is nearly as large as the formal trade, according to a 2006 study by the World Bank. Mohammad Jalal Uddin Sikder, a researcher with the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) at the University of Dhaka, describes typical smugglers: "They are landless, most of them are female, sometimes divorced. They have no other choice." Criminalizing...
...time when separatist movements and Maoist groups are calling on the poor and dispossessed to reject or undermine the Indian state, that simple lesson bears repeating. Nothing secures loyalty to a country as effectively as a share of its wealth. I asked Surumara Rai, who married into a home in an adverse possession, whether she feels part of India or Bangladesh. "Indian," she says proudly. One of her neighbors adds, "She's eating the food of the Indian government. Of course she feels Indian...
...migration and one of the largest land crossings in Asia. More than 1,000 people pass through every day, most by bus and some on foot, along with about 400 commercial trucks. They walk through a metal gate several meters wide, accompanied by a bizarre set of rituals. The Indian bus lets its passengers off on one side of the checkpoint, and they board a bus owned by a partner company on the other. The luggage passes from the hands of Indian porters to their waiting Bangladeshi counterparts. The new train service linking Kolkata with Dhaka goes through Petrapole with...
...there is one thing on which outside observers of the linked challenges of Pakistan and Afghanistan agree, it is that soothing regional tensions is an essential part of any solution. Pakistan, seeing Indian investment in Afghanistan, fears being encircled by its old enemy. Then there is the Indo-Pakistani dispute over Kashmir, the Himalayan territory that both nations claim. During the presidential-election campaign, Obama said repeatedly that resolving the Kashmir issue is a key to peace across South Asia...