By Ishaan Tharooor

Around early December in eastern Bangladesh, hundreds of people boarded a few rickety wooden boats and embarked on a journey they thought would convey them to a better life. They would perhaps land on Thailand's southwestern coast and then seek work there or in the Muslim promised land of Malaysia. On December 28, 2008, 98 of them were found drifting by India's remote Andaman Islands, starving and dehydrated, a picture of the hardship weathered by generations of boat people fleeing adversity only to fall into even greater trials.

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