The last frontier of the Bengal floodplains, the Sunderbans is a sprawling archipelago of several hundred islands, some large, some minuscule, stretching nearly 300 km between West Bengal and Bangladesh.

Sagar Refugee Colony, Ganga Sagar gram panchayat: Ever since her older son went off to work as a daily labourer in Kashmir two years ago, Sahajadi Bibi has to worry a little less about how to feed her family of eight.

The business of settling new-formed land, rehabilitation of environmental refugees and building and maintaining embankments is subject to much political manoeuvring. Anthropologist Amites Mukhopadhyay of Kalyani University, West Bengal, who's researched these machinations extensively, calls it " char politics'.

Bangladesh has banned tree-felling in its Sundarbans mangrove

Fishing has been banned in 28 rivers and canals flowing through the Sunderbans of Bangla

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