On the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Ufa, Russia, Prime Ministers (PMs) Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan and Narendra Modi of India respectively have attempted to overcome recent frictions between the two South Asian neighbours.
Both leaders talked on multiple issues. The PMs also agreed to evolve a mechanism to promote religious tourism. Two counterparts also agreed to release each other’s hapless fishermen who are arrested for straying within the other side’s waters in the absence of any indicators of where the maritime boundary lies within 15 days of their arrest.
One undeniable positive gleaned from the SCO summit is the grant of membership to both Pakistan and India. The hope is that this will facilitate the two countries in bettering their mutual relations.
But Prime Minister of Pakistan has missed the opportunity to talk on the water terrorism India is committing in violation of international treaties. Considering the matter of urgency this issue must have been discussed with the Indian counterpart. But we have failed to raise this issue in this meeting and in other forums at international level. Politicians could not make consensus on the decades old Kalabagh dam. But there is dire need to explore other option to deal with the water crisis our country is facing which could be diversified in the coming years. World’s largest earth and rock filled dam was built at Terbela on river Indus in 1976, it’s 24.6% storage capacity has been lost. Mangla reservoir is the second major storage of Pakistan; again due to siltation it has lost 13.2% of its storage.
In the meeting with Indian counterpart PM Nawaz failed to raise the issue of water crisis which India is committing by violating international water treaties.
