One of few places on Earth where an international boundary can be seen at night | Hacker News Reader

One of few places on Earth where an international boundary can be seen at night

earthobservatory.nasa.gov

136 pointsvinnyglennon43 comments

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See also the South/North Korea border: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2725415/Nasa-...

Also, East and West Berlin, still distinguishable by the streetlamps which have not been replaced since reunification.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2013/apr/21/astro...

US/Mexico: http://visiblesuns.blogspot.com/2014/07/us-mexico-border-at-...

One man decided that border in a matter of a few weeks having never been to India before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radcliffe_Line

He left after drawing the line, burning his papers and not accepting payment. So nobody really knows why the border was decided to be where it is yet untold billions have been spent defending it and lighting it up.

Oh, and that border cost ~500,000 lives.

Once flying from the US to Delhi, a flight attendant came to get me in the middle of the night, and waved me over to an open window row to show me the border. It's quite pretty, but it is striking how few lights are on other than the border itself.

> It's quite pretty, but it is striking how few lights are on other than the border itself.

A few reasons for that:

1) The border between India and Pakistan is one of the less populated regions of both countries, for a variety of reasons.

2) Many cities in India have a variety of load-mitigation ordinances in effect to reduce power and water consumption. I'm not sure what the state is these days in Delhi and nearby areas, but it's similar to what's done in parts of the US, just on a larger scale.

3) Power is expensive! In the US, it's astonishing how much electricity we waste, even (or especially) at night. India is overall a less wealthy country, so people naturally conserve electricity much more than we're used to over here.

There's desert on either side of the border.

I first misread this as "international date line can be seen at night" and was questioning for a moment whether everything I knew about time zones was wrong. (Though, I do imagine there are some good pictures to be taken where it's 4PM on one side of a border and 5PM on the other side, and very different things are happening as a result.)

I wonder how many MW are spent on this border

Good question.

Wikipedia entry claims 150,000 floodlights but I question the origin of this number. It showed up out of the blue, in a single edit, and none of the cited sources have the said number in them. Two pieces of information that the edit added are that there are (A) 0.15 million lights, and (B) 50,000 poles they're on: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Indo-Pakistani_bo...

Trying to trace A or B just shows articles that obviously quoted wikipedia, and they use either version of 0.15 or 150,000 depending on when they were written. At this point, the wiki entry number is almost imaginary, being circularly reinforced by web articles referencing it.

thanks for the research.

this article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033886/India-Pakist... may give further insight. from the picture, one can estimate that lights are separated by approx 20 meters, and the length of the lighted border is about 2000 km. This gives about 100 000 floodlights, which is consistent with the Wikipedia figure. Those lights seem rather powerful. I would not be astonished if they were 1kW each (might be much smaller if made of LED, but the yellow-ish color suggests it's not). This gives 100 MW of lighting power. Crap, that's a lot.

I am usually for open borders but pakistan is really an exception. They have too many problems - They in the past used to openly fund terrorist militias in both India and Nepal.

Until they sort themselves out its a good idea to create a donald trump style wall between them and India.

This comment is so discriminatory. India and Pakistan basically have the same problems. Both countries are quite screwy. Read real books on both countries rather than just reading new articles and you would know this.

Really, What about the 1971 genocide?

Disagree. India and Pakistan are similar and have similar problems but the level of white-washing of history and devotion to "Garrison State" does not happen in India. Heck, the education system in India is wildly varied from state to state. After reading real books and what not, India is screwed up, but if Indians want to feel any better they only have to look at Pakistan and take comfort from the fact Pakistan is more screwed up.

India is amazing. As a ethnically hindu bangladeshi I would eat a hat to switch my passport so that I could go work in bangalore !

I do not have a problem with muslims - most of my friends are. But islam is a terrible curse in south east asia in general.

I am not sure if its the saudis spreading wahabbism - I mean pakistan was terrible even during the independence.

Pakistan needs some sort of Hiroshima moment like the Japanese to come to terms with the fact that they as a country made a grave mistake breaking away from India.

> As a ethnically hindu bangladeshi

Well, on that note, as an Hindu East Bengali, I'm embarrassed to read the things you've been posting here.

What exactly did I say that you think is so shameful ?

You've posted many comments to HN that were uncivil, unsubstantive, or both. Now you've called (or almost called) for nuking Pakistan, which is beyond the pale.

Please work on editing out the uncivil and unsubstantive from your comments, and please stop feeding flamewars on this site.

Nice for you to assume my ignorance.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both fund extremist Islamist groups, but no one seems to acknowledge it since both are US allies.

India has its problems but no where the level of Pakistan. The people of Pakistan are extremely brainwashed with religious extremism. I know that because I went to a school filled with them and also Indians. They openly justify terrorism - we are not talking about uneducated people, but extremely educated - cream of the crop pakistanis.

I would love to live to see pakistan became a better country but its people are so backward - its going to take a lot of time to solve all the problems they have.

> Pakistan and Saudi Arabia both fund extremist Islamist groups, but no one seems to acknowledge it since both are US allies.

I thought it was a well-travelled non-secret in U.S. diplomatic circles. The Atlantic ran an article [1] a few years ago that caused quite a stir, in part by showing that the U.S. has active invade-and-defuse ("render safe") plans for Pakistan.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2011/12/the-ally-f...

Did Obama ever come out and condemn pakistani actions ?

He criticized India for its backward views on women - and no words on the saudis.

I view both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be the most vile countries with extremely vile societies - I used to think its just the govt. But having lived in the middle east and known a lot of saudis and pakistanis I am disappointed to say that the people are not much more different that the terrible views spewed by their govt.

But somehow the countries that require the most attention are Iran and Syria ?

Did Obama ever come out and condemn pakistani actions?

Obama took big risks in the 2008 campaign to accuse Pakistan of harboring Usama ibn Laden. Hillary and McCain both condemned him for telling the truth.

The national media and national security PR machine attacked Obama for saying it but Obama stood firm. Obama also promised he'd go into Pakistan and kill ibn Laden whatever the diplomatic cost and then he did it.

Obama also told us exactly why the Iraq adventure would be a disaster in 2002.

I don't like the police state policies Obama enforces at home, but we're lucky to have him. The next few presidents are unlikely to be as brave, honest, visionary, or competent when it comes to foreign policy. The Washington insider machine will be back in power far too soon.

I don't judge Hindus by that mob in Dadri or the people in JK state assembly beating someone up for eating beef.

Pakistan had its Hiroshima moment, when all the prisoners of war were repatriated from India after the Simla accords.

Don't think that "hazaar-saal-hukmrani" is totally unchallenged in the media there - I see people on Pakistani TV criticize it freely all the time. From the way you're going on about it you'd think the country was North Korea. It's not.

As a Pakistani I feel genuinely sad that so much is being spent on enforcing borders when there's so much poverty on either sides of the border in the southern regions.

And as a South Indian I feel cheated that the money I pay as tax is being wasted this way in what is essentially a North Indian problem.

The propensity to fight pointless wars is a human problem not specific to any particular grouping of humans.

Yes, but I'm not paying for the wars humans are waging all over the globe. I would rather have power in Bangalore than waste it this way.

AFAIK, you are. India has contributed millions in foreign aid to rebuild Afghanistan and contributes a significant number of troops to UN peacekeeping forces.

Unfortunately, you are correct. I am paying for all the evil deeds of India.

Then don't pay taxes. See, right now you have North India as a buffer against West Asian hordes like ISIS. If North Indians stop defending you, then you will have this border right up to your nose.

Before you are overrun.

That's just fear mongering. India is far more dangerous to us than ISIS.

This sort of mindset is what is hampering India. Be Indian first, then think south or north. Soldiers at the border are from the entire country and they are protecting our entire nation, not "south" or "north"

That's the whole point, India needs to be hampered so that we can save ourselves. I have my own language and culture. I don't have to be an Indian first. I am free to be whatever I want to be.

You could always put up a fence to divide yourself from North India, but then you'll just have to pay taxes to light that one up.

I don't think so. India would be crippled without us and they wouldn't be able to wage any war.

Poverty won't be solved by spending less on enforcing borders. This is the same type of thing the BBC says whenever India does something like send a probe to the moon or mars.

Actually, it will. Not because of the extra money, but because of increased trade and job mobility that will come with a more open border.

That is generally true but in this case that isn't really an option.

One could argue that such massive projects generate more employment, and do their bit in tackling the unemployment issues.

It is Pakistan that does not want Indian goods flowing in. India is more than happy to trade with Pakistan.

You should put one up on the Afghanistan border too if you don't want to be overrun by ISIS.

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