Indian Government Seriously Pissed At China's Plan To Dam, Divert Brahmaputra River

[hatrack]

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The river begins as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet, before cascading down through northeast India and Bangladesh to the Bay of Bengal. China wants to divert 200billion cubic metres of water a year to the Yellow River to ease water shortages in northern China that threaten to undermine economic growth and social stability.

Those downstream, however, fear the project would bring economic and ecological disaster, as well as disrupting India's own plans to harness the Brahmaputra's waters. "The river is our life source. Without it, we're doomed," Mr Hussein said. "We'd have to find a new job, a new life."

Chinese officials deny approving the plan, but Indian officials remain unconvinced, and intend to raise the issue in talks with President Hu Jintao, who arrived in Delhi yesterday for the first visit by a Chinese head of state since 1996. The controversy illustrates the enduring friction between India and China, which fought a border war in 1962 and are now in a race to claim global superpower status. China recently finished the $US25billion ($32.5billion) Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest water conservancy project, and work has begun on another scheme to take water from the Yangtze through a giant canal to the parched north.

Now China is considering a proposal to divert the Brahmaputra where it does a U-turn through the world's deepest canyon before entering India. The plan is being championed by Guo Kai, a 73-year-old water expert who says the dam would "quench the thirst of all China". But Indian experts say Mr Guo's scheme could be disastrous for the 185 million people of northeastern India and Bangladesh. In the state of Assam, for example, 80 per cent of the population is involved in agriculture and depend on the Brahmaputra for irrigation. Assam gets 60 per cent of its power from hydroelectric dams on the river and its tributaries. "We are firmly opposed to the Chinese plan," said Ripun Bora, a government spokesman.

The Chinese scheme would disrupt India's own plans for a massive diversion project on the Brahmaputra to ease water shortages in its south and west.

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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20793373-30417,00.html

[Systematic Chaos]

1. I like your headline a LOT better than

"Fury at China plan to dam Brahmaputra"

It gives the whole thing a more Monty Python-esque feel that just jibes so well with my Pollyanna-like cynicism and jadedness. Nothing quite like getting an attack of the giggles as I contemplate those two countries having an all-out resource war.

Someone either pinch me to wake me up, or just f**king shoot me now.

[AIJ Alom]

2. Well I'll be India gets it's own Farakka Barrage !

For decades India has diverted water from the Ganges during the dry season, and let the water flow freely during the wet season into Bangladesh. Now they are about to get a taste of their own medicine.

For a quarter century, people from my nation of origin, Bangladesh, have protested this monstrosity.

[Javaman]

3. Let the water wars begin! actually they already have but just not in that

big world war sort of way, give it time.

[applegrove]

5. My thoughts exactly. Let the water wars begin!!

[Odin2005]

4. It's crap like this that makes me anti-nation-state and pro-global government