ABSTRACT
The ‘Himalayan Water Common’, a massive water repository, serves four billion people in China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Asia. With high population density, India and its neighbours are particularly vulnerable from their deepest aquifers to its largest rivers below par surface and groundwater. India has water-related disputes on the Indus and Brahmaputra river systems involving China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh. Internally, water security increases friction between co-riparian Indian states. Externally, the India-Pakistan Indus Water Treaty (IWT) is regarded as a gold standard between warring nations. The same does not hold for the Farrakka treaty with Bangladesh. The Brahmaputra, despite its transnational character, has no institutional mechanism. None has acceded to the 1997 Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. India, middle riparian, must explore cooperation with its upstream and downstream neighbours to preserve and monitor Himalayan glaciers.
