25 November 2019

What Were They Thinking?

The Nissan Kicks (replacing the all wheel drive Nissan Juke), the Toyota C-HR, and now the Hyundai Venue, are all new "subcompact SUVs" (Kelley Bluebook calls them "SUV-lets") with front wheel drive only.

What were they thinking? Why bother creating a front wheel drive only SUV type vehicle?

I guess it makes sense for the California and Hawaii markets. But, for those of us who live in places that get serious snow, and who sometimes drive on dirt roads that turn to mud, this is insanity and an oxymoron of the worst kind.


Psychic Detective Yakumo

There are basically two kinds of love stories. In one, more than one person competes for the other's love. In the other, one person proves to someone who is hard to love that they are loved and can be redeemed. The second kind is uncommon. But, told well, it can be the best kind of love story.

Snuck away behind the mystery and supernatural elements, Psychic Detective Yakumo is an epic love story of the second type, which is why the series of novels have had two manga adaptation, an anime adaptation, a live action TV adaptation, and a stage play based upon it. 

21 November 2019

The Limits of Diversification


Diversification only reduces risk if the risks are accurately quantified and not correlated with each other.

16 November 2019

Quote of the Day

Wealth is careless -- so around it, you must be careful.
- John Green, "Turtles All The Way Down" (2017).

14 November 2019

Disabling Drones By Disabling Their Eyes

Protestors in Chile and Hong Kong have used personal laser pointers to take down or disable drones monitoring the protests.

I've also been pondering another way to disable drones of all kinds by impairing their sensors inspired by the fact that the performance of my backing camera on my car is greatly impaired when I've driven through dirty, wet snowy roads that leave a thin layer of mud all over the lens.

What if you used spray paint, or hurled a fine mist of mud, or shot a paintball gun at the sensors of a drone? It would seem to me that this might be sufficient to take it out of action, and also to force soldiers within manned vehicles reliant upon cameras to target its guns or operate it, to get out of the protective hull to keep the vehicle fully operational.

What I'd Like To Have In A Future Social Media Platform

Consider this my request for proposals for Facebook® 2.0 (no claim to the trademark is made here, this is purely nominative use):

* I'd like a platform that doesn't show you the same post over and over again, even if it is shared and reposted (even months later), or at a minimum, minimizes repeat posts to just show the person posting it and new comments and content.

* I'd like a platform that clearly displays when linked material was published and gives old news lower priority without completely censoring it. At a minimum, it should prevent material that was breaking at the time but is now old news from appearing suddenly new.

* I'd like a platform the automatically flags and attaches to linked material sources debunking the link as fake, or including subsequent developments about events reported in the linked material.

* I'd like a platform that allows you to "bookmark" posts that you see for future review and reference without having to share them which can appear to endorse the posts or let the public know you are interested in something that you'd prefer not to advertise without having to read it right then.

* I'd like a platform that automatically makes a first shot at categorizing posts you've expressed interest in by subject matter. Posts could have more than one category. For example, a post about today's school shooting in Santa Clarita might have one "Santa Clarita November 14, 2019 shooting" category, and another category about mass shootings or gun violence. The categories would be personalized based upon cluster analysis of content you've responded to, posted or shared.

* I'd like a platform whose spelling checker has a larger vocabulary.

* I'd like a better way to review archived material.

* I'd like an ability to back arrow to the exact page you were on previously rather than seeing an updated version of that page that might not have what you were just in the middle of reading and accidentally clinked away from.

* I'd like a platform that automatically "yellow flags" posts and comments from people with a history of being the kind of people you unfriend, downrate, etc., but doesn't censor them unless you choose to do so.

* I'd like a platform that automatically shows you something describing the credibility and bias of sources of linked material, which you could manually adjust (e.g. maybe one to five stars that have a color from red to purple to blue reflecting their bias or white if unknown).

* I'd like a platform that automatically yellow flags potential friends who seem spammy or like fraudsters.

* I'd like a platform that allows you to flag a few categories of ads (not all of them, I recognize that they have to make money) that you'd prefer not to see.

* I'd like a platform that promptly (but accurately) resolves cases of two accounts for the same person, one real and one fake.

* I'd like a platform that allows two or three links that have a preview page in a post, rather than just one.

* I'd like more fine tuned control over what I am notified about. I usually don't want to know that someone reacted to a post or comment, but I do want to know if there is a comment that I might want to react or respond to.

* I'd like for there to be an easier way to retroactively change privacy settings for large numbers of prior posts at once.

* I'd like it to be fairly easy to deactivate features like the "Your Story" feature in Facebook. 

* I'd like a feature that you tell you, at least when you have a large enough number of friends, how many have unfollowed you and how many you actually reach with your posts.

* I'd like a way to sort posts with links from posts without links (both my own and other people's).

* I'd like a feature that stops a repeat loop GIF after a certain number of loops, unless you manually choose otherwise.

* I'd like a feature that translates non-English text embedded in an image.

* I'd like a feature that allows you to manually nudge your feed to have more or less or some kind of content without making an all or nothing rule about it. Hence, maybe you'd like more cat videos and fewer political posts, but don't want all of one and none of the other.

* I'd like direct messaging that don't involve "winks" and allows you to filter out or deprioritize direct messages targeted at lots of people at the same time.

* I'd like a platform that doesn't flag Wikipedia links as spam and trigger content filters for them.

* I'd like to be able to globally deactivate image hiding features designed to protect people from seeing gross or violent or not safe for work content, even though I think it is a good feature to have in the system.

Feel to add your own suggestions in the comments.

05 November 2019

You Sunk My Battleship

Preface

People who make military policy and amateurs who follow it alike are in something of a vacuum when it comes to naval warfare.  While the Navy is a very large share of the United States Defense Department budget, there have been so few skirmishes in the past fifty years or so that it is hard to get a reality check on the multi-billion dollar expenditures involved. The few incidents which have occurred, meanwhile, have taken on disproportionate importance.  

While some naval history is too distant to be of much use, from the ramming battles between glorified rowboats of the Greeks, to the days of sails and cannons, it is fair, at least, to look at the experience of World War II, the last full fledged blue sea naval campaign in world history.  This experience has informed much of the current conventional wisdom regarding naval warfare, and while the lessons learned in World War II need to be updated to reflect technological advances that have taken place since then, they are too recent to safely ignore.

Among other things, World War II taught the lesson that the heavy armor of a battleship was no match for modern offensive weapons. 

As the Wikipedia article linked above explains:
Battleships were the largest and most complex, and hence the most expensive warships of their time; as a result, the value of investment in battleships has always been contested. 
As the French politician Etienne Lamy wrote in 1879, "The construction of battleships is so costly, their effectiveness so uncertain and of such short duration, that the enterprise of creating an armored fleet seems to leave fruitless the perseverance of a people". The Jeune École school of thought of the 1870s and 1880s sought alternatives to the crippling expense and debatable utility of a conventional battlefleet. It proposed what would nowadays be termed a sea denial strategy, based on fast, long-ranged cruisers for commerce raiding and torpedo boat flotillas to attack enemy ships attempting to blockade French ports. 
The ideas of the Jeune École were ahead of their time; it was not until the 20th century that efficient mines, torpedoes, submarines, and aircraft were available that allowed similar ideas to be effectively implemented. The determination of powers such as Germany to build battlefleets with which to confront much stronger rivals has been criticised by historians, who emphasise the futility of investment in a battlefleet that has no chance of matching its opponent in an actual battle.
Large Warships In Existing Navies

Today, there are only two ships of the battleship class in the world, both in the Russian Navy, only one of which is in active service, the 28,000 ton Admiral Nakhimov commissioned in 1988 is currently undergoing refit and is out of service, and the 28,000 ton Pyotr Velikiy, of the same class commissioned in 1998 is in active service.  

The 14,564 ton Zumwalt class destroyer of the U.S. Navy, the largest warship in the U.S. Navy that is not an aircraft carrier or non-combatant logistics ship, and is is arguably misclassified as a destroyer deserves a battleship designation. Just three Zumwalt class destroyers have three have been built (and no more have been ordered). One was commissioned in 2016, one was commissioned in 2019, and one is awaiting a commission later this year. It cost $7.5 billion per ship of total cost to build and has been severely criticized:
Mike Fredenburg analyzed the program for National Review after Zumwalt broke down in the Panama Canal in November 2016, and he concluded that the ship's problems "are emblematic of a defense procurement system that is rapidly losing its ability to meet our national security needs." Fredenburg went on to detail problems relating to the skyrocketing costs, lack of accountability, unrealistic goals, a flawed concept of operations, the perils of designing a warship around stealth, and the failure of the Advanced Gun System. He concludes:

"The Zumwalt is an unmitigated disaster. Clearly it is not a good fit as a frontline warship. With its guns neutered, its role as a primary anti-submarine-warfare asset in question, its anti-air-warfare capabilities inferior to those of our current workhorse, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and its stealth not nearly as advantageous as advertised, the Zumwalt seems to be a ship without a mission."
Each of the three ships of the Zumwalt class have two six inch guns and room to hold almost a thousand shells for them, but no ammunition (emphasis mine):
The Advanced Gun System (AGS) is a naval artillery system developed and produced by BAE Systems Armaments Systems for the Zumwalt-class destroyer of the United States Navy. Designated the 155 mm/62 (6.1") Mark 51 Advanced Gun System (AGS), it was designed to provide long range naval gunfire support against shore-based targets. A total of six of the systems have been installed, two on each of the three Zumwalt-class ships. The Navy has no plans for additional Zumwalt-class ships, and no plans to deploy AGS on any other ship. AGS can only use ammunition designed specifically for the system. Only one ammunition type was designed, and the Navy halted its procurement in November 2016 due to cost ($800,000 to $1 million per round), so the AGS has no ammunition and cannot be used.
Indeed, only twenty navies in the world have surface warships (including aircraft carriers, but not transport ships) larger than a frigate: U.S. (111), Japan (48), China (33), Russia (20), India (14), France (14), United Kingdom (7), Norway (5), Italy (4), Taiwan (4), Netherlands (4), Denmark (3), Germany (3), South Korea (3), Egypt (3), Saudi Arabia (3), Spain (2), Brazil (1), Thailand (1), and Morocco (1).

Only seven of these countries (China, Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Thailand and Morocco) would plausibly be U.S. naval warfare adversaries in the foreseeable future (while many of the remaining thirteen countries would likely be allies of the U.S. in an future naval warfare in their region). These seven plausible adversaries have 62 large surface warships ships combined. Of these only China and Russia are really serious concerns militarily and they have 53 large surface warships combined.

The Russian fleet's large ships, moreover, are split between several global regions that are distant from each other in some case (Northern, Baltic, Black Sea and Pacific). The aircraft carrier, the battleship, one smaller cruiser, and six destroyers are in Russia's Northern fleet. One smaller cruiser and five destroyers are in Russia's Pacific fleet. One of its smaller cruisers and one of its destroyers are in Russia's Black Sea fleet. Three of its destroyers are in Russia's Baltic fleet.

Several other plausible U.S. naval warfare adversaries such as Iran and North Korea have submarines but no large surface combatants.

Currently, the U.S. has 20 aircraft carriers (11 "super carriers" of 100,000 tons or more, and 9 amphibious assault ships which can carry helicopters, Osprey aircraft, Harrier aircraft or F-35B aircraft of 40,000-45,000 tons), Italy has 2, Japan has 4, France has 4, Australia has 2, Egypt has 2, and Brazil, China, India, Russia, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom each have one. In all there are 42 aircraft carriers in active naval service in the world.

Five aircraft carriers (one each from the U.K., China, Russia, India and France in order of size) are between the size of a U.S. super carrier and the smallest U.S. amphibious assault ship ranging from 42,000 to 65,000 tons (and only four of these from the China, Russia, India and France, and the ten U.S. super carriers, allow for something other than a vertical landing). The other eighteen aircraft carriers range from 11,486 tons to 27,100 tons (eleven of which are restricted to vertical takeoff and landing aircraft such as helicopters and the MV-22 Osprey). All twenty-seven carriers under 42,000 tons and two larger aircraft (one from the U.S. at 45,000 tons and one from the U.K. at 65,000 tons) are restricted either to short takeoff vertical landing aircraft such as an F-35B or a Harrier, or to vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

Eleven more carriers (including two that are only VTOL carriers) are undergoing sea trials or ordered: the U.S. 3, China 3, and South Korea, India, Italy and Turkey one each.

Currently, the U.S. has 22 cruisers (10,000 tons each) and Russia has 4 (one battleship with 28,000 tons and three cruisers with 12,500 tons) in active service. In all there are 27 cruisers in active naval service in the world. The U.S. cruisers are virtually indistinguishable from its destroyers and slightly inferior to them as they are older designs.

Currently, the U.S. has 69 destroyers (including 2 of the Zumwalt class), Japan has 44, China has 32, Russia has 15, India has 13, France has 10, the U.K. has 6, Norway has 5Taiwan has 4, the Netherlands has 4Germany has 3, Denmark has 3South Korea has 3Saudi Arabia has 3, Italy has 2, Egypt has 1, Morocco has 1, and Spain has 1. The largest destroyer in active service (other than the two Zumwalt class destroyers in active service) is 10,290 tons and many of which are considerably smaller. Some of the destroyer class ships are larger, more capable ships actually called frigates in an effort to make comparisons comparable. All ships classified as frigates for these purposes are under 5,000 tons, although a few particularly capable frigates between 4,000 and 5,000 tons are classified as destroyers. There are 219 destroyers in all of the world's navies combined.

In all there are 42 aircraft carriers over 11,000 tons and 7 other surface combatants over 11,000 tons in naval service in the world. Of those, 20 aircraft carriers and 2 other surface combatants are in the U.S. Navy and 1 aircraft carrier and 4 other surface combatants (one battleship and three cruisers) are in the Russian Navy. The other navies of the world have 21 aircraft carriers, only 10 of which are more than VTOL helicopter carriers. There are 244 other surface combatants bigger than frigates in the world in active naval service (of which 67 are in the U.S. Navy and 15 are in the Russian Navy).

The Japanese Naval Experience

The case that really brought this home for the Japanese was the sinking of the battleship Yamato.  This 71,000 ton ship with massive 18 inch guns was tough.  It  had previously survived a hit from a torpedo delivered by a U.S. submarine on Christmas Day in 1943, and two bombs that hit it in October of 1944, in the Leyte Gulf.  Two more 36,000 ton Japanese battleships, the Fuso and the Yamashiro, were sunk by naval gunfire and torpedoes in that same October battle.  Bombs damaged the 39,000 ton Japanese battleship Nagato in the battle of the Leyte Gulf badly enough to remove it from action. Ultimately, air power prevailed over the big guns and heavy armor of the pinnacle of the battleship era.  On April 7, 1945, the Yamato was sunk by carrier based U.S. aircraft and it took 2,498 Japanese sailors with it.  The 32,000 ton Japanese battleship Ise (already removed from service nine months earlier by a mine), and Japanese battleships Hyunga and Haruna were sunk by carrier based U.S. aircraft in July of 1945.

Japan had already lost its 32,000 ton battlecruiser Kirishima to 16” naval gunfire from the 47,000 ton American battleship Washington in 1942 in one of the last of the battles that went according traditional naval models of close range ship to ship combat, in this case, at a range of a mile and a half.  The 28,000 ton Japanese battleship Kongo was sunk by a submarine in November of 1944.  Its three sister ships were sunk by U.S. aircraft in World War II.

The American Naval Experience in World War II

Americans remember Pearl Harbor.  Yes, this carrier based air attack was a surprise.  But, a heavily armored hull did not prevent this attack from sinking the 32,000 ton U.S. battleship Arizona and three other battleships.  Four more battleships were seriously damaged, the 29,000 ton American battleship Nevada among them, although the Nevada was ultimately returned to service and survived further battle damage on multiple occasions.  Few naval strategists before Pearl Harbor had realized how vulnerable the fleet was to aerial attack.

The 33,000 ton American battleship Idaho ran aground off Okinawa in June of 1945.  American battleship Pennsylvania,  a sister ship of the Arizona, was taken out of action by enemy aircraft in August of 1945.

The 45,000 ton American battleship Indiana did exhibit the resilience in the face of damage which battleships are legendary for notwithstanding a mixed experience in real life.  It survived both a collision and a hit by a kamikaze pilot in 1944, and serious storm damage in 1945, and survived until decommissioning in 1963.  The 45,000 ton South Dakota similarly sustained and survived repeated battle damage. The 56,000 ton American battleship Iowa likewise survived serious damage from shore fire sustained in March of 1944, and the 47,000 ton battleship Washington survived a 1942 torpedo hit from a Japanese submarine and a 1945 friendly fire incident.

The German Naval Experience in World War II

Germany’s 51,000 ton battleship the Bismark found its fate at the bottom of the sea in May of 1941.  The British Royal Air Force damaged the 40,000 ton German battleship Gneisenau to the point that it never again was useable as a battleship in 1942.  Sister German battleship Scharnhorst, however, survived in the face of a seemingly never ending barrage of hits sustained.

The Italian and Vichy French Naval Experiences in World War II

Both Italy and Vichy France both saw battleships destroyed in port before they were ever launched.  

The planned 48,000 ton battleship Clemenceau was destroyed in its French port during a bombing raid in August 1944.  The 36,000 ton battleship Dunkerque, in the hands of the Vichy French, was damaged sufficiently to be taken out of action, and lost one in seven of its crew members, in July of 1940, by a combination of British warship attacks and torpedoes in two separate incidents.

The 30,000 ton Italian battleship Duilio wasn’t actually sunk, but a British bombing raid in November of 1940 took it out of service for about a year, and the ship served only a brief secondary role in World War II thereafter.  The 46,000 ton battleship Vittorio Veneto was taken out of action by British aircraft in 1941, then by a submarine, and then 1943 by another aircraft.  The 47,000 ton Italian battleship Littorio was taken out of commission by British aircraft by June of 1942.

The Spanish Naval Experience in World War II

The 16,000 ton battleship Espana was sunk by a “friendly” mine in July of 1937 during the Spanish civil war, killing a third of the sailors on board.

The British Naval Experience in World Wars I and II.

While it predates World War II, it is worth recalling that the 22,000 ton British battleship Dreadnought (the second of that name launched in 1906) which became synonymous with the very notion of a battleship, sank only one enemy vessel, a German submarine, in all of World War I.  It achieved this end not with its ten 12” guns, but with a methodology as old as Greek naval warfare.  It rammed it.

German dive bombing planes took the 30,000 ton British battleship Iron Duke out of service on October 17, 1939.  It Italian airplane’s torpedo took the 38,000 ton British battleship Nelson out of service for a year on September 27, 1941.  The British lost the 42,000 ton battleship Prince of Wales in December of 1941 to an attack by Japanese aircraft, after having suffered serious damage from naval guns, which was repaired, earlier that same year.  The 33,000 ton British battleship Queen Elizabeth was removed from service when an Italian frogman bombed it while it was in harbor that same month.

04 November 2019

Colorado Supreme Court Revised Cruel and Unusual Punishment Analysis

The Colorado Supreme Court in lead case Wells-Yates v. People, and companion cases People v. McRae and Melton v. People has substantially revised the framework in which cruel and unusual punishment allegations are evaluated, generally speaking, in the favor of criminal defendants, although not in an unqualified win.

Some people serving long sentences for minor drug crimes in Colorado will probably have those sentences reduced as a result of these decisions.

The practical effect of this is that severe habitual offender sentences, which were once almost never disturbed under the 8th Amendment, especially for drug crimes, may now have some hope of being overturned as disproportionate and cruel and unusual. 

The official syllabus of the lead case is a good starting point:
The court holds that: (1) during an abbreviated proportionality review of a habitual criminal sentence, the court must consider each triggering offense and the predicate offenses together and determine whether, in combination, they are so lacking in gravity or seriousness as to raise an inference that the sentence imposed on that triggering offense is grossly disproportionate; (2) in determining the gravity or seriousness of the triggering offense and the predicate offenses, the court should consider any relevant legislative amendments enacted after the dates of those offenses, even if the amendments do not apply retroactively; (3) not all narcotic offenses are per se grave or serious; and (4) the narcotic offenses of possession and possession with intent are not per se grave or serious. 
The most serious drug offenses (sale and distribution) remain per se grave and serious based upon the high intent threshold and high penalties remaining on the books. Theft is also held not to be "per se grave or serious" in the Melton v. People case.

The key facts in the lead case were as follows:
The prosecution charged Wells-Yates in 2012 with second degree burglary, conspiracy to commit second degree burglary, theft, possession with intent to sell or distribute 7 grams or less of a schedule II controlled substance (methamphetamine), four counts of identity theft, and three habitual criminal counts. In February 2013, a jury found Wells-Yates guilty of all the substantive charges. Following a bench trial in May 2013, the court adjudicated her a habitual criminal based on three predicate offenses: 
• A 1996 conviction for possession with intent to sell or distribute 7 grams or less of a schedule II controlled substance (methamphetamine), a class 3 felony; 
• a 1997 conviction for possession of 2 grams or less of a schedule II controlled substance (methamphetamine), a class 4 felony; and 
• a 1999 conviction for possession of 2 grams or less of a schedule II controlled substance (methamphetamine), a class 4 felony. 22 
The court subsequently conducted a sentencing hearing. For each of the eight triggering offenses, it imposed the statutorily required prison sentence—four times the maximum prison term in the presumptive range: 
• 48 years (12 × 4) on count 1, second degree burglary, a class 3 felony; 
• 24 years (6 × 4) on count 2, conspiracy to commit second degree burglary, a class 4 felony; 
• 24 years (6 × 4) on count 3, theft, a class 4 felony; 
• 48 years (12 × 4) on count 4, possession with intent to sell or distribute 7 grams or less of a schedule II controlled substance (methamphetamine), a class 3 felony;9 and 
• 24 years (6 × 4) on each of the four class 4 felony counts of identity theft (counts 5, 6, 7, and 12). 
The court ordered all of the sentences, with the exception of the sentence on count 7, to be served concurrently. 
In total, Wells-Yates received an aggregate prison term of 72 years: 24 years on count 7, consecutive to all the other sentences. 
(The parties agree that the sentence on count 4 was incorrectly calculated; it should have been 64 years, not 48 years. Possession with intent to sell or distribute 7 grams or less of methamphetamine on the date charged in count 4 was an extraordinary risk class 3 felony, see § 18-1.3-401(10)(b)(XI), C.R.S. (2012); the maximum term of years in the presumptive range for such a felony is 16, not 12, years, see § 18-1.3-401(1)(a)(V)(A), C.R.S. (2019). Therefore, the trial court should have multiplied 16 × 4, not 12 × 4. The basis of count 7 was the sale of the identity documents during Wells-Yates’s first meeting with the agent; the sentence on that count was ordered to be served consecutive to all the other sentences. 23 (the longest of which were the 48-year concurrent sentences on counts 1 and 4).11 She is eligible for parole.) 
(Given the error regarding the sentence on count 4, the parties agree that Wells-Yates should have received an aggregate prison term of 88, not 72, years (24 + 64, instead of 24 + 48)).
The state legislature in Colorado has in recent years dramatically reduced the sentences for drug crimes in a non-retroactive way and this is what gives the ability to reconsider legislative changes that are not retroactive when evaluating proportionately so powerful.

If "Wells-Yates committed the triggering offense of possession with intent on or after October 1, 2013, instead of in 2012, she would have faced a prison sentence of 2 to 4 years, not a mandatory habitual criminal sentence of 64 years." 

The one point upon which criminal defendants do not prevail is that the Colorado Supreme Court holds that proportionality analysis needs to be conducted on charge by charge basis, rather than the aggregate sentence for all charges including whether sentences are to be served concurrently or consecutively. So, they do not consider the total 72 year combined sentence, but only the sentences for each particular offense.

The cases are remand to the trial courts to reconsidering in a much more fact specific way in the face of a much more favorable legal standard.

The prospects of success on remand for these defendants and similarly situated victims of old draconian drug war sentences seems good, although the remedy for an 8th Amendment violation is to reduce the sentence to the highest amount that would not be cruel or unusual, which is still high.

01 November 2019

Religion, Language, Agriculture and Vegetarianism In South Asia



Note that "Other Caste includes both Christians and Muslims thus artificially inflating meat consumption for higher caste Muslims and in particular for Brahmins who by conventional wisdom are most likely to be vegetarian.




From here via Razib Khan's pinboard. State by state data that mirrors that in maps below are available at the link. Also, gender differences in meat eating are fairly modest in most of India, but in North India, women consistently eat meat much less frequently than men.

There is considerable regional and ethnic variation in vegetarianism  and meat eating in India, however. 



From here.

Beef and buffalo eating, in particular, is not eaten by many people in India, although this percentage varies greatly by religious affiliation: 
Around 63.4 million Muslims consume beef/buffalo. That adds up to 40% of the total Muslim population. For Christians, this figure is around 26.5%. Although, less than 2% Hindus eat beef/buffalo, they are ranked second in absolute terms. More than 12.5 million Hindus consume it.
Most of the geographic diversity in vegetarianism and meat eating in India, however, is within majority Hindu regions and is only modestly impacted by the percentages of non-Hindus in each region.

The historical basis of the wide regional intra-Hindu vegetarianism and meat eating frequency isn't readily apparent, although areas that are linguistically Indo-Aryan are more likely to be vegetarian than areas that are linguistically Dravidian, Munda or Tibeto-Burmese. Meat eating may reflect a thinner Indo-Aryan influence even in places that experienced a language shift to Indo-Aryan languages. Vegetarianism may alternatively reflect a stronger influence from the pre-Indo-Aryan Harappan society.



The map below shows the most common first language in different parts of India with majority vegetarianism corresponding reasonably well to the region where the Indo-Aryan Hindi, Punjabi or Gujarati languages are spoken, with vegetarianism being less common in places where other languages are spoken, even when they are Indo-Aryan languages.



Both from here.

The divide also roughly corresponds to the divide between places where Fertile Crescent Neolithic package crops especially wheat, millet and pulses are grown (which tend to be vegetarian), and those where Sahel Africa especially sorghum is grown, roughly overlapping with historically Dravidian areas, or East Asia Neolithic crops especially rice is grown, roughly corresponding to historically Munda and Tibeto-Burmese areas (both of which tend to be meat eating). 

Consider, for example, this crop map (as of 1973 in India):





Vegetarianism is also somewhat correlated with areas with relatively low agricultural productivity.



The correlation with India's natural vegetation zones is worse:



The Larger South Asian Context

The chart above compiled from comparable figures shows that meat consumption is 12.84 kg/year/person in Pakistan, 3.27 kg/year/person in Bangladesh, and 2.9 kg/year/person in India. Meat consumption in Bangladesh probably isn't much different from neighboring parts of India which are less vegetarian than India as a whole.

A source covering only Pakistan and India says that Pakistan consumes 8.6 kg/year/person of meat v. 1.8 kg/year/person of meat in India (v. 9.4 kg/year/person of meat in Japan). 

Another source suggests that Pakistan consumes 6.71 kg/year/person, while Bangladesh consumes 0.91 kg/year/person. These numbers are probably correct relative to each other.

A third source, however, suggests that Bangladesh consumes slightly more meat per year per person than India and does not have data for Pakistan. These relative numbers are also probably correct.

Conclusions Regarding Meat Eating and Vegetarianism 

In sum, India consumes very little meat compared to almost every other country in the world and certainly compared to almost every other country in the world with similar or higher per capita GDP.

In India meat is consumed disproportionately by Christians and Muslims, with Muslims eating more meat than Christians and vegetarians are most common in the Northwest. Also, even among people who India who do eat meat, most of them eat meat only rather infrequently, and daily meat consumption is almost as uncommon in India as vegetarianism is in the U.S. (which as of 2015 is about 3.4% of Americans are vegetarian and about 0.4%).

Bangladesh consumes only a little more meat than India, despite being predominantly Muslim, while Pakistan consumes much more meat than either India or Bangladesh, even though it abuts the most strictly vegetarian parts of India. 

Religious Affiliations in South Asia


India

In India, the religious mix is as follows:

The majority of Indian Jews have "made Aliyah" (migrated) to Israel since the creation of the modern state in 1948. Over 70,000 Indian Jews now live in Israel (over 1% of Israel's total population). Of the remaining 5,000, the largest community is concentrated in Mumbai, where 3,500 have stayed over from the over 30,000 Jews registered there in the 1940s, divided into Bene Israel and Baghdadi Jews, though the Baghdadi Jews refused to recognize the B'nei Israel as Jews, and withheld dispensing charity to them for that reason. There are reminders of Jewish localities in Kerala still left such as Synagogues. The majority of Jews from the old British-Indian capital of Calcutta (Kolkata) have also migrated to Israel over the last six decades.
From here.

There is some geographic diversity in the religious mix of India although almost all predominantly Muslim areas were partitioned in West Pakistan (now simply known as Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now known as Bangladesh after Pakistan had a civil war).


The majority of Indian Muslims (over 85%) belong to the Sunni branch of Islam while a substantial minority (over 13%) belong to the Shia branch. There are also tiny minorities of Ahmadiyya and Quranists across the country. Many Indian Muslim communities, both Sunni and Shia, are also considered to be Sufis.
From here.

Pakistan

Pakistan is almost uniformly Muslim:

  Islam (state religion) (96.28%)
  Hinduism (1.85%)
  Christianity (1.59%)
  Ahmadi (0.22%)
  Other religions (0.07%)

Muslims comprise a number of sects: the majority practice Sunni Islam, while 5–15% are Shias. Nearly all Pakistani Sunni Muslims belong to the Hanafi Fiqh Islamic law school. The majority of Pakistani Shia Muslims belong to the Ithnā‘Ashariyyah Islamic law school, with significant minority groups who practice Ismailism, which is composed of Nizari (Aga Khanis), MustaaliDawoodi BohraSulaymani, and others. Many Muslims of both types in Pakistan are also considered to be Sufis.

Bangladesh

The major religion in Bangladesh is Islam (90%), but a significant percentage of the population adheres to Hinduism (9%). Other religious groups include Buddhists 0.6%, (mostly Theravada), Christians (0.3%, mostly Roman Catholics), and Animists (0.1%).
The majority of Bangladeshis are Sunni. They follow the Hanafi Islamic jurisprudence, but there is also an increasing numbers of the Ahle Hadith.  Specifically about 96% are Sunni Muslim, 2% are Shia Muslim, 1% are "nondenominational" Muslim, and 1% are "other Muslims". About 26% of Muslims identify as part of a Sufi Muslim order.

The percentage of the population that is Muslim in the sixty-four districts of Bangladesh varies from 29.28% to 97.79%, and four of the sixty-four districts are not majority Muslim. One more is 63.53% Muslim. The other fifty-nine districts in Bangladesh are more than 70% Muslim.