SKARDU, April 25: Lawyers have criticised the government for not giving Baltistan division due representation in judiciary and other departments of Gilgit-Baltistan. They sought share of Baltistan in judiciary and all departments according to its population.

Baltistan chief court bar association president Shaukat Ali advocate, in a statement here, said the people of Baltistan had been totally ignored in filling posts in the Supreme Appellate Court, Chief Court, special judges in banking, customs, anti-terrorism, anti-narcotics, excise and taxation courts; no single position had been allocated to Baltistan for the posts of advocate general, additional advocate general, deputy advocate general and assistant advocate general.

He said the people of Baltistan were being denied their due share in other departments like election commission, public service commission and services tribunal etc.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/national/call-for-giving-baltistan-due-share-in-gb-jobs-640

One issue that stood out in Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir’s address to the 37th session of the Standing Committee of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Bhutan was the need to adopt a regional approach towards tackling water issues. Environment and climate change will be the focus of the 16th SAARC Summit, which is going to adopt a declaration titled ‘Green and Happy South Asia’. Climate change worldwide and the malign effects of global warming will have a negative impact on our common heritage — the Himalayas — which are the reservoirs of our water in the form of glaciers. And that is how the subcontinent has, historically, remained one of the most fertile areas of the world. The water that flows down the mountains and is distributed through an extensive irrigation system is a source of livelihood and the very survival of millions comprising the agrarian communities of the region.

The issue of water distribution is the bone of contention between upper and lower riparian countries in the region. Voices of protest against India pilfering Pakistan’s share of water are growing louder. Besides Pakistan, India has had problems with Bangladesh on the waters of River Ganges that forms its delta in Bangladesh. These are issues dictated by nature, which is no respecter of political boundaries. Without a cross-border and region-wise cooperation, these issues cannot be settled to the satisfaction of all parties.

The same applies to all other issues, be it energy, food security, trade, people to people contacts, security, etc. The proximity and relative ease of transportation has the enormous potential to make trade among member countries a booming success, whose benefits will accrue at all levels of the regional economy. Unfortunately, this potential of cooperation among member states has not been tapped because of bilateral political problems, particularly between India and Pakistan. Since no bilateral issue can be discussed on the forum of SAARC, this hampers progress on key issues, affecting all other countries. This is not to say that progress has not been made since SAARC came into being, but the kind of cooperation necessary to make the dream of a prosperous and peaceful South Asia — originally envisaged in the body’s charter — a reality, is nowhere in the offing. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010\04\27\story_27-4-2010_pg3_1

By Khalid Hussain

ISLAMABAD: The ongoing water contentions between India and Pakistan in the context of the Indus Waters Treaty 1960 (IWT) place before us four different yet inter-connected realities. One is the perception present in news coverage and analysis by the mass media in both the countries. The other exists between the two Indus Water Commissioners (IWCs) that jointly make up the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) charged with implementing the IWT in letter and spirit. Third there are the ever-dominant bilateral security concerns that now stand compounded with ongoing international involvement in our regional geo-politics. And

finally, the environmental and ecological reality that we all live with across South Asia connects us to the rest of the world fighting climate change.

Let us address these perceptions one by one for a holistic perspective on water contentions between India and Pakistan. The media version is flawed because of a limited capacity to understand the complex hydrological regimes of the Indus Rivers System that both countries manage independently in their respective territories following the IWT. The almost secretive working of the IWCs in both countries further compounds the situation. The media in Pakistan, while projecting unfounded allegations of water theft and the ‘water war’ India is waging, tends to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the IWT – an instrument that has ensured water peace between the neighbours even during war times.

To these allegations, senior Pakistani statesman and a water expert in his own right, Dr Mubashir Hasan responds: “If India has stolen our water, then tell me how have they done it? Where have they taken it?”

“New Delhi has no ‘storage and diversion canals network’ to withhold Pakistan’s share of water,” explained India’s High Commissioner to Pakistan Sarat Sabharwal in his recent speech at the Karachi Council for Foreign Affairs.

Basically, there is a general tendency to oversimplify the IWT, especially in Pakistan. Most coverage simply goes with the notion that India has no rights over the Western Rivers (Chenab, Jhelum and the Indus). The reality is not that simple. Indian has water rights for domestic uses including drinking, washing, bathing and sanitation. The non-consumptive uses allowed to India cover uses including navigation, flood control and fishing.

India also has the right to draw water from the Western Rivers to irrigate a maximum permissible irrigated crop area of 1.34 million acres. It can also use water from these rivers for run-of-the river hydroelectric projects. Hydroelectric projects incorporated in storage works are also allowed albeit to the tune of only 3.6 million acre feet (MAF). Of this storage, 0.4 MAF is allowed on the Indus, 1.5 MAF on the Jhelum and 1.7 MAF on the Chenab.

This is in addition to the storage that existed on these rivers before the Treaty came into force. However, storage is strictly regulated for India, with a total of only 1.25 MAF allowed as general storage. The remaining quantity is split between 1.6 MAF for generating hydroelectricity and 0.75 MAF for flood control.

The media is key to ensure a fair coverage of the issues involved. The current water scarcity that is feeding emotions across the borders of the IWT is not permanent. It is making water ‘hot’ at the moment but as soon as supplies are replenished in the river system, the issue will move to the backburner as always.

This is why sustained open communication is so essential, as underscored at ‘Talking Peace’, the editors’ and anchors’ conference organised in Karachi recently by Aman ki Aasha, a joint initiative for peace by the Jang Group and Geo TV in Pakistan and the Times of India group in India. Editors agreed on the need for more cross-border information and on the need to focus on facts rather than emotions when writing about each other’s countries.

Concerted joint efforts are essential to cover the range of issues involved in an objective and fair manner on both sides. This is imperative to counter tensions between the two countries. This brings us to the latest unresolved contention between the two Indus Water Commissioners (IWCs) that jointly make up the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) charged with implementing the IWT in letter and spirit.

As reported earlier (Part I of this series), Pakistan has already notified India of its intention to seek arbitration on the Kishanganga Hydroelectric project. The News has learnt that Pakistan will hire the services of its arbitrator in the Baglihar Dam case, Prof. James Crawford, Head of the Law, Cambridge University, once again. The News has learnt that a senior water expert from Pakistan paid a quiet visit to England in the last week of March this year to confirm his acceptance.(to be continued.) http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28538

Lahore: Pakistan has repeatedly accused India of breaching the terms of a 1960 treaty governing the use of shared river systems, complaining that irrigation channels on its side of the border have emptied.

The issue has now been adopted by militants in Jamaat-ud-Dawah, widely regarded as a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Jihadi group fighting Indian troops in Kashmir and responsible for the November 2008 wave of gun and bomb attacks that killed at least 170 people in Mumbai.

Hafiz Saeed, the founder of Lashka-e-Taibi and head of Jamaat-ud-Dawah, threatened a water war with India during a recent TV interview.

“Look at India’s attitude, especially after the 9/11 attacks. It has taken advantage of Pakistan’s weaknesses and made dams and stopped our water.

Pakistan, for its defence, will have to fight a war at all costs with India if it is not prepared for talks on Kashmir and water,” Saeed said in an interview with Frontline, a private TV channel.

His comments followed earlier statements claiming that control of water resources was being used as a weapon to weaken Pakistan.

“India is trying to hatch a deep conspiracy of making Pakistan’s agricultural lands barren and economically annihilating us,” said one.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since partition in 1947 and remain deeply divided over the disputed territory of Kashmir.

Delhi broke off talks with Islamabad after the Mumbai attacks, which a senior Pakistan official later admitted had partly been planned in his country.

They resumed briefly in February but India insisted full negotiations would require Pakistan to prosecute those responsible for the Mumbai killings.

Manmohan Singh, of India, and Yousuf Raza Gilani, of Pakistan are expected to meet today on the sidelines of a summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation.

Officials said the question of water was likely to top the agenda.

The countries divvied up rivers originating in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir, and flowing into Pakistan, according to the terms of the Indus Waters Treaty.

Pakistani campaigners believe the accord has broken down because India is taking too great a share to feed new hydropower plants and irrigate farmland.

Talks last month in Lahore failed to make progress with Indian officials arguing that better management would conserve Pakistan’s water supplies.

Farmers in Punjab province have staged angry demonstrations in recent weeks.

Hamid Malhi, coordinator of the Punjab Water Council, which represents farmers, said he believed the dispute could be resolved without conflict by amending the original treaty.

“What we fear is that if they fill all the dams and barrages they are constructing, they have the ability to squeeze us any time they like,” he said. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/7639449/Mumbai-terrorist-group-threaten-Indian-water-jihad.html

By Babar Dogar in The News, Apr 28
LAHORE: Former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri has disclosed that the agreement on Kashmir, worked out through back-channel diplomacy, was an interim one, and was subject to review after 15 years.
Talking to The News here on Tuesday in the backdrop of ‘Aman Ki Asha’ – a joint venture of the Jang Group of Pakistan and The Times of India, Khursheed Kasuri claimed the Pakistani and Indian sides at that time had the realisation that in view of the history of Jammu and Kashmir dispute, no solution that they could think of would be an ideal one. He termed that agreement on Kashmir the best possible under the circumstances.

“We were aware of the fact that there would be an overwhelming support for this agreement; but we also realised that there would be criticism from some sections in Kashmir, Pakistan and India,” he said, adding that it was impossible to offer a solution which could be acceptable to everyone.

Kasuri said they decided that the arrangement they had arrived at would need a review after 15 years of its announcement. During this period, its implementation would be monitored by all parties concerned and, in the light of the experience, this arrangement could further be improved.

He said the water issue was not discussed as a crucial matter at that time; the agreement on Kashmir was being negotiated. However, the management of water was one of the issues included in the joint mechanism. He claimed that the joint mechanism was apart from the Indus Basin Treaty, which was the basis of water sharing arrangement between the two countries.

Responding to allegations from religio-political parties, which termed the proposed agreement an attempt to sell out Kashmir, Kasuri said the basis of the agreement was the assumption that Pakistan and India had tried everything in their power to enforce their version of a Kashmir settlement.

“They have fought five wars, including two minor ones in the Rann of Katch and Kargil. There have been various mobilisations of troops, including the largest one since First World War (Operation Parakram), in which one million soldiers remained eyeball-to-eyeball for almost a year,” Kasuri claimed. He said the nuclear parity had been established in South Asia after the nuclear tests India and Pakistan conducted, making war between the two countries nearly impossible.

Reacting to the criticism by Syed Ali Geelani of his statement on the reported Kashmir agreement, Kasuri claimed that he had great respect for Ali Geelani for his being a freedom fighter, but he disagreed with him that the solution that was envisaged for Kashmir would have led to further disturbances in the valley and that the people of the valley would never have acquiesced in a settlement that he described as one perpetuating the status quo. Giving reasons for his disagreement, he said the whole purpose of the disagreement was to improve the comfort level of the Kashmiris by the gradual demilitarisation. “The Kashmiri leaders, we met in India, Pakistan and overseas, attached highest importance to withdrawal of the Indian forces,” he claimed. Furthermore, he said the Kashmiris, due to the proposed agreement, would have become in-charge of their own destiny in a vast array of specified subjects in the economic, social and political spheres. He claimed that the very creation of a joint mechanism consisting of Kashmiri representatives from both sides as well as Indian and Pakistanis would have comprehensively negated the criticism that status quo had not been changed. He said the agreement arrived at once signed could not be unilaterally changed by either side. He believed that it would have given a lot of relief and hope to the Kashmiris.

He welcomed the statement of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that efforts were being made through the back-channel diplomacy to resolve all outstanding issues with India. He said it was important that negotiations be resumed because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government with which they negotiated the arrangement was still in power, and the BJP the other majority party had started the process during the tenure of former prime minister Vajpayee. He said he welcomed it despite being in the opposition because he believed that in matter of national interest one had to rise above the spirit of partisan.

He claimed that there was no need to reinvent the wheel and the recent comments from the Foreign Office of Pakistan suggested the same and were encouraging. He said painstaking and detailed work had already been done and the two governments should take off from where they had left.

Kasuri claimed that they conducted secret negotiations with all stakeholders because they wanted to avoid any spins or leaks, which could damage the level of trust between the parties. He said they could not have signed an agreement without authorisation from their respective cabinets and parliaments. He claimed that the whole idea was to produce a draft which the governments of Pakistan and India felt would be acceptable to the large majority of Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians, and the draft agreement would then have been submitted to the appropriate constitutional authorities in both the countries for their approval.

Kasuri believed that the present government also supported the agreement. He claimed that President Asif Ali Zardari, in his very first interview at the Aiwan-e-Sadr, said the nation would have good news about Kashmir very soon. He claimed that though this announcement was premature, yet it was clear that he could only make the statement because he was aware of the progress made on back-channel and supported it. He said the incumbent government appointed Tariq Aziz, their representative on back-channel, to continue his work after the present government took over. He further referred Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi’s announcement during an interview with CNN that former foreign secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan, who was privy to all negotiations on the Kashmir agreement, was asked to start working on the back-channel.

Kasuri pointed out that those who criticised the secret nature of the back-channel needed to take note of the great secrecy with which the representatives of various political parties conducted their negotiations in parliament over the issue of the 18th Amendment, although this was purely an internal matter and not even marginally capable of exploitation by premature leaks or spins as against the protracted and difficult nature of negotiations between Pakistan and India given their troubled history on the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.

Regarding taking all the stakeholders on board, he stated it was unthinkable that an issue of this nature could be negotiated without having all the stakeholders on board. He claimed that besides the Foreign Office and the Presidency, the Military was appropriately represented.

Kasuri claimed that the nature of Pakistan-India relations following the Mumbai attacks needed concerted efforts not just by the government but also by the civil society to bring the two countries to the dialogue process once again. He appreciated ‘Aman ki Asha’ by the Jang Group and The Times of India Group as an important contribution in helping to remove some of the trust deficit that existed between the two countries.http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=28528