Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


India's Increasing Defenses Eat Away at Farmland Along Border with Pakistan

Reuters

   BOBIYA, INDIA - When half a dozen trucks loaded with construction
   material screeched to a halt on their farms, Baryam Singh and fellow
   residents in the Indian village of Bobiya sensed they were soon going
   to lose more land to the military.

   The farmers chased away the contractors and laborers with protests and
   threats of deflated tires, knowing it was only a temporary reprieve.

   "The military infrastructure has been growing in our village and our
   farmlands are shrinking," Singh told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, as
   other farmers sitting around him nodded.

   "More than 50% of our agricultural land is under military lockdown," he
   said of the village on the border with Pakistan.

   Over the past 15 years, the Indian army and the country's Border
   Security Force (BSF) have been acquiring land to fortify defenses in
   the border districts of Jammu and Kashmir, according to the Border
   Welfare Committee, a local organization campaigning for the rights of
   border residents.

.