Earth Science News
WATER WORLD
Indian PM vows to stop waters key to rival Pakistan
Indian PM vows to stop waters key to rival Pakistan
by AFP Staff Writers
New Delhi (AFP) May 6, 2025

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Tuesday that water from India that once flowed across borders will be stopped, days after suspending a key water treaty with arch-rival Pakistan.

"India's water used to go outside, now it will flow for India", Modi said in a speech in New Delhi.

"India's water will be stopped for India's interests, and it will be utilised for India."

Pakistan has warned that tampering with its rivers would be considered "an act of war".

Modi did not mention Islamabad specifically, but his speech comes after New Delhi suspended its part of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, which governs water critical to parched Pakistan for consumption and agriculture.

New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists on the Indian side of contested Kashmir last month, sparking a series of heated threats and diplomatic tit-for-tat measures.

Pakistan rejects the accusations, and the two sides have exchanged nightly gunfire since April 24 along the de facto border in Kashmir, the militarised Line of Control, according to the Indian army.

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Monday said relations between Pakistan and India had reached a "boiling point", warning that "now is the time for maximum restraint and stepping back from the brink" of war.

Islamabad on Tuesday accused India of altering the flow of the Chenab River, one of three rivers placed under Pakistan's control according to the now suspended treaty.

"We have witnessed changes in the river (Chenab) which are not natural at all," Kazim Pirzada, irrigation minister for Pakistan's Punjab province, told AFP.

Punjab, bordering India and home to nearly half of Pakistan's 240 million citizens, is the country's agricultural heartland, and "the majority impact will be felt in areas which have fewer alternate water routes," Pirzada warned.

"One day the river had normal inflow and the next day it was greatly reduced," Pirzada added.

In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, large quantities of water from India were reportedly released on April 26, according to the Jinnah Institute, a think tank led by a former Pakistani climate change minister.

"This is being done so that we don't get to utilise the water," Pirzada added.

The Indus River is one of the longest in Asia, cutting through ultra-sensitive demarcation lines between India and Pakistan in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir -- a Himalayan territory both countries claim in full.

Hindu-nationalist Modi had already threatened to use water as a weapon in 2016 after an attack in Indian-run Kashmir.

"Blood and water cannot flow together," he said at the time.

But India also is a downstream state of China -- which controls the Tibetan headwaters of the Brahmaputra, the vast river key to India's northeast, and which then flows down through Bangladesh.

ash-pjm/mlm

Waters

Related Links
Water News - Science, Technology and Politics

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters
Tweet

RELATED CONTENT
The following news reports may link to other Space Media Network websites.
WATER WORLD
The West's spring runoff is older than you think
Salt Lake City UT (SPX) May 06, 2025
Growing communities and extensive agriculture throughout the Western United States rely on meltwater that spills out of snow-capped mountains every spring. The models for predicting the amount of this streamflow available each year have long assumed that a small fraction of snowmelt each year enters shallow soil, with the remainder rapidly exiting in rivers and creeks. New research from University of Utah hydrologists, however, suggests that streamflow generation is much more complicated. Most spr ... read more

WATER WORLD
Five dead, two missing in Colombia landslide

Jordan hospital treats war casualties from across Middle East

US climate agency stops tracking costly natural disasters

Gazans struggling to survive as Israel plans for 'conquest'

WATER WORLD
Web archivists scrambling to save US public data from deletion

SMART Launches WISDOM Research Group for Next-Generation 3D-Sensing Technologies

China cracks down on smuggling to enforce rare earth export controls

System lets robots identify an object's properties through handling

WATER WORLD
Spongy Device Draws Water from Air Using Sunlight for Efficient Harvesting

Only a Tiny Fraction of Deep Seafloor Mapped Over Seven Decades

Nigeria fishing river reels from changing climate

David Attenborough urges 'save the oceans' as new film premieres

WATER WORLD
Glacier in West Antarctica Engages in Rapid Ice Piracy

Thawing permafrost dots Siberia with rash of mounds

Ice cores from tropics challenge Holocene temperature models

Summer 2024 was Lapland's warmest in 2,000 years: study

WATER WORLD
Atmospheric Memory Effect Discovered as Key Mechanism in Monsoon Rainfall

Tobacco town thrives as China struggles to kick the habit

After Catastrophe Urban and Peri-Urban Farming Could Sustain Medium-Sized Cities

Startup helps farmers grow plant-based feed and fertilizer using wastewater

WATER WORLD
Floods in eastern DR Congo kill more than 100: local officials; Somalia floods kill seven, displace 200 families

Over 45,000 affected by Somalia flash floods since mid-April: UN

Belgian mother and son die in Jordan floods: authorities

Jordan evacuates tourists from Petra after flood hits

WATER WORLD
On patrol for jihadists with Mauritania's camel cavalry

Burkina leader seeks stronger military ties with Russia

Strike on Sudan's Darfur kills 14 members of one family: rescuers

Jihadists disrupt crucial wood supplies in Niger capital

WATER WORLD
Versatile Call Combinations in Chimpanzees May Shed Light on the Evolution of Human Language

Sunscreen and shelter strategies may have shielded early humans from solar radiation

'Toxic beauty': Rise of 'looksmaxxing' influencers

'Toxic beauty': Rise of 'looksmaxxing' influencers

Subscribe Free To Our Daily Newsletters




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us.