PM Modi will discuss with officials the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty between India and Pakistan
India today indicated that a dramatic reconfiguring of the Indus Waters Treaty for the sharing of six rivers with Pakistan is not off the table as a response to the Uri terror attack, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a meeting: "Blood and water cannot flow together."
Here are 10 facts on the story:
- Sources say today's meeting chaired by PM Modi "was a first step" and the government has not ruled out "further steps" on the 1960 treaty that has survived two full-scale wars.
- National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar were also in the meeting held to assess the agreement after the September 18 attack in which 18 soldiers were killed in Jammu and Kashmir's Uri.
- To start with, the government is looking into ways of making maximum use of three of the rivers that are governed by Pakistan under the treaty - Indus, Chenab and Jhelum.
- The deal was signed between India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Pakistan's president General Ayub Khan after World Bank-brokered negotiations that lasted almost a decade.
- Control over the three eastern rivers - the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej - was given to India while the three western rivers went to Pakistan, unrestricted.
- India can use only 20 per cent of the water of the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab which flows through it first, for irrigation, transport and power generation.
- Sources say the government's plan is to exploit an option it hasn't for 30 years - which is to use the western rivers to benefit the farmers of Jammu and Kashmir.
- If India were to cut off supply to Pakistan, it could cause a huge crisis in that country as a majority of its areas are dependent on Indus water.
- Stopping the flow of the Indus into Pakistan would, however, cause floods in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab.
- The government wants work on dams to be speeded up.
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