The Brahmaputra and other rivers of Assam are replete with numerous sandbars, which are locally called chars. Chars are home to nearly 10 per cent population of Assam. Char dwellers live a precarious life. Battered by recurrent floods and soil erosion, chars have an impermanent existence. In western Assam, the char dwellers, mostly belonging to the migrant Muslim community of East Bengal origin, live in backwardness and poverty. The article examines two questions pertaining to their economic life: income and seasonal migration. Through a primary data survey and statistical analysis, the article seeks to delineate the salient factors which influence their income and migration decision. We conclude that land holding, land lost due to erosion, household size and education are some of the factors which play a key role in this regard. We find that location of a char is important: some chars are more migrationprone than others. Policy implications have been spelled out in the end.

SummaryCurrent studies have been challenging in reducing the number of devices and ensuring fault tolerance features of the multilevel inverters (MLIs). This article proposes a new fault‐tolerant neutral point clamped (NPC)‐type MLI using two three‐level NPC legs, which can work in symmetric and asymmetric modes to generate nine and 17‐level output voltage, respectively. The proposed converter has less device count and low total blocking voltage (TBV); further, the converter has different redundant switching states for tolerating different categories of faults. This article also implements a modified pulse width modulation (PWM) control strategy to ensure the zero‐dc offset at the output when asymmetrical voltage levels appear with the occurrence of switch faults. A detailed operation of the proposed converter under symmetric and asymmetric modes is presented for healthy and different categories of faults. The converter's feasibility is verified by its current and voltage characteristics obtained from the MATLAB‐SIMULINK software and the experimental prototype. Further, the efficiency of the converter is verified with the PLECS software. Finally, a comparison with recently proposed topologies is performed to emphasize converter performance.

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