India and Bangladesh on in June 2015 signed an agreement to simplify their 4,000-km (2,500-mile) border and clarify the identities of 52,000 living in enclaves, over four decades after the neighbours first tried to untangle complex territorial rights set down in 1713. Under the deal, signed in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, the two countries will swap 200 tiny enclaves, most of them close to the official border. Their inhabitants have been deprived of public services and living in squalid conditions.
On 1st August 2015, as the clock strikes midnight (00:0:01 Hr), 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladeshi territory and 51 Bangladeshi enclaves in Indian territory are set to be physically transferred to the other country. The transfer will take place in pursuant to the 1974 Boundary Agreement and its Protocol of 2011, the instruments of which were ratified during the Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Bangladesh last month. Around 52,000 enclave residents will become residents of either country after living a stateless existence for 68 years. Under the Land Boundary Agreement, a joint nationality preference survey was conducted to give the residents the choice of nationality. Data from the survey is now being verified by the office of the Registrar General of India and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, says a press release from the Indian High Commission. It has said that both countries are working together to facilitate the trouble-free moving of residents before the stipulated date of November, 30th, 2015.
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