M Ali Khan

Minister (2k+ posts)
Water warriors

By Shahzad Chaudhry
Published: August 11, 2013


The writer is a defence analyst who retired as an air vice-marshal in the Pakistan Air Force


Ask anyone in Pakistan: what shall the two neighbours, India and Pakistan, fight their next war on, and you are likely to get a consensus on the answer: water. Not that it is necessarily true, but that is the current creed, built on a half-baked and semi-literate discourse pedalled on a daily basis in the mainstream media.


Why is this done? And, why is such a narrative successfully entrenching itself? The answer to both dilemmas lies in the domain of partial inquiry that beguiles this developing thought. Those who pass as experts are only half that. None is taught the field of hydrology or even has basic education in water.

In such a barren landscape, shorn of water wit, if the dominating belief is that India is selling Pakistan’s electricity extracted from stolen Pakistani waters, or even more insidiously, is sending our way water minus its electricity, show me the way to Mars.


This Martian existence has other dimensions, too. The present adviser on water and power to the government is a pharmacist by training. The PPP government had a medical doctor as the minister in charge for petroleum and natural resources for most of its five years, who reportedly had something to do with inducting the pharmacist. Not exactly a reassuring lineage.

But listen to the current adviser on water talk of the power travails and his prescription for alleviating the curse of persistent power cuts, and you are likely to come out singing his praises. Whether he has ever been close to a real grid station though, is another issue altogether.


With premier slots in the government open to glib fly-by-night experts, competition is bound to rise. That, in essence, is the underlying causality for the current band of water warriors spewing venom at one another and on anything that emerges from the inner sanctums of government as the way forward out of the power morass.


The basic construct of the Indus Basin Water Treaty, which governs water relations between India and Pakistan, was luckily constituted in English — translations, too, are available — and anyone with a basic sense of science and geography should be able to understand the essence of what this excellent piece of agreement contains as the guiding principles to keep waters flowing. The treaty has stood the test of three-and-a-half wars, and many near ones since, when all else failed between the two states.


The problem is, not many have opened up the treaty and its various annexes to correctly define and identify the rules for run-of-the river projects and permitted levels for domestic, consumptive, non-consumptive and agricultural use. Similarly, what is India permitted as ‘pondage’, as against ‘storage’ that she is frequently indicted for in the Pakistani narrative? Cumulative storage in ‘pondage’ is not to exceed 3.6 million acre-feet (MAF).

Do we know how much India is actually storing? A recent figure suggested over 200 MAF in popular discourse in Pakistan. Pakistan’s total share of the three western rivers averages 117 MAF. From where is India managing to store more than 200 MAF from the same rivers? And these are Pakistan’s rivers. Since we don’t read, we become easy prey for the disinformation that goes around on such critical issues.


India and Pakistan each store roughly the same amount of water (16 MAF) from their allotted rivers in the Indus Water Treaty; yet, India produces 12,700MW of power from their three rivers, compared with Pakistan’s 6,717MW only from the three western rivers. From Chenab alone, India recovers 8,700MW, while Pakistan extracts only 14MW. It is a dynamic of finances — of which India has plenty more — and of topography that India exploits better. Our woes are many; in water, too, but we must begin by husbanding our resources better.


A recent television discussion on water wars counted a civil engineer, a fighter-pilot, a man who runs a private security company and two journalists as experts. Pity the listening audience. The landscape is droughty and barren and the impostors have an easy ride. Ferret out the water-literate and put them to work.



Published in The Express Tribune, August 12[SUP]th[/SUP], 2013.



http://tribune.com.pk/story/588840/water-warriors/

this is the reason why whenever we hype up the 'India is stealing our waters!!!' mantra, its mostly bullsh*t spat out by the Establishment to distract the masses given how LITTLE we even know of the Indus Water Treaty!
 
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M Ali Khan

Minister (2k+ posts)
People can actually download and read the original Indus Water Treaty text from the World Bank website here:

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/...23497-1105737253588/IndusWatersTreaty1960.pdf

Its only 24 pages! Do read Annexure E (Storage of Water by India on the Western Rivers).
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXT...K:146736~piPK:583444~theSitePK:223547,00.html

and if any chachora says "why should we trust the World Bank??", then I say "Hey idiot, the World Bank made the 1960 treaty!"

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Indus Waters Treaty - Articles and Annexures
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Full text of articles[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Helvetica] (850kb)[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Preamble[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article I Definitions[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article II Provisions regarding Eastern Rivers[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article III Provisions regarding Western Rivers[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article IV Provisions regarding Easter Rivers and Western Rivers[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article V Financial Provisions[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article VI Exchange of Data[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article VII Future Cooperation[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article VIII Permanent Indus Commission[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article IX Settlement of Differences and Disputes[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article X Emergency Provisions[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article XI General Provisions[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Article XII Final Provisions[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure A - Exchange of Notes between Gov.of India and Gov. of Pakistan[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure B - Agricultural use by Pakistan from certain Tributaries of the Ravi[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure C - Agricultural use by India from the western rivers[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure D - Generation of Hydro-Electric Power by India on the western rivers[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure E - Storage of Waters by India on the western rivers[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure F - Neutral Expert[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure G - Court of Arbitration[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure H - Transitional Arrangements[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica]Annexure H - Appendix II[/FONT]
 
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JusticeLover

Minister (2k+ posts)
All indian dams should be removed by force , Pakistan needs water of 5 rivers , natural flow of rivers must be restored.
 

M Ali Khan

Minister (2k+ posts)
usually I do not respond to old threads ignored by all the PTI vs PMLN vs Zaid Hamid vs MQM vs Hindu Zionists nonsense on this website but:

All indian dams should be removed by force , Pakistan needs water of 5 rivers , natural flow of rivers must be restored.

Well in that case, Pakistan would have to treat the Indus Basin Water Treaty of 1960 (something which you didn't bother reading despite the links I provided!) as declared null and void.

That would mean the ONE agreement that has worked between India and Pakistan for FIFTY THREE YEARS is a threat to qaumi gheyrat.

in that case then, since the Treaty that ALLOWS India to build storage reservoirs on Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum as per Annex E of the Treaty (read damnit, READ!!!) at a certain limit, and was signed an endorsed by Gen Ayub Khan is, a threat to national security right?

So does that mean Gen Ayub Khan was a TRAITOR?

whenever we raise this right-wing hoo haa of "India stealing / blocking / diverting our waters" in Daily Ummat and Nawai Waqt etc, all we do is end up embarrassing ourselves because we are NOT able to create water management mechanisms ourselves!

People can actually download and read the original Indus Water Treaty text from the World Bank website here:

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/...23497-1105737253588/IndusWatersTreaty1960.pdf

Its only 24 pages! Do read Annexure E (Storage of Water by India on the Western Rivers).
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,,contentMDK:20320047~pagePK:146736~piPK:583444~theSitePK:223547,00.html

and if any chachora says "why should we trust the World Bank??", then I say "Hey idiot, the World Bank made the 1960 treaty!"

 
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JusticeLover

Minister (2k+ posts)
usually I do not respond to old threads ignored by all the PTI vs PMLN vs Zaid Hamid vs MQM vs Hindu Zionists nonsense on this website but:



Well in that case, Pakistan would have to treat the Indus Basin Water Treaty of 1960 (something which you didn't bother reading despite the links I provided!) as declared null and void.

That would mean the ONE agreement that has worked between India and Pakistan for FIFTY THREE YEARS is a threat to qaumi gheyrat.

in that case then, since the Treaty that ALLOWS India to build storage reservoirs on Indus, Chenab, and Jhelum as per Annex E of the Treaty (read damnit, READ!!!) at a certain limit, and was signed an endorsed by Gen Ayub Khan is, a threat to national security right?

So does that mean Gen Ayub Khan was a TRAITOR?

whenever we raise this right-wing hoo haa of "India stealing / blocking / diverting our waters" in Daily Ummat and Nawai Waqt etc, all we do is end up embarrassing ourselves because we are NOT able to create water management mechanisms ourselves!

well united nations charter says that natural flow of water should not be changed , it changes the whole ecosystem so i dont care what indus water treaty says , pakistan must get all the water of river which were coming before 1947 thats it.
 

M Ali Khan

Minister (2k+ posts)
well united nations charter says that natural flow of water should not be changed , it changes the whole ecosystem so i dont care what indus water treaty says , pakistan must get all the water of river which were coming before 1947 thats it.

The UN and World Bank were the ones who made the Indus Water Treaty 1960 possible and regard it as a legally binding agreement willingly signed between both India and Pakistan.

Deal with it and accept it.

so i dont care what indus water treaty says

Then dont raise false hue cry about "qaumi gheyrat" if you cannot even bother to read. pitiful attitude and pitiful ignorance.
 
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