The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) organised an interactive session on 'The Pakistan-India conflict' in the institute library on Saturday.
It was explained by PIIA chairperson Dr Masuma Hasan there was a need to hear different voices, especially the voices of the youth, regarding the recent conflict. Therefore, they decided to call on their research assistants to talk about the different themes of the conflict, as identified by them, for the audience to then take it from there.
Taking the audience through the events of the past month or so, she also reminded how India, out of the blue, with no credible evidence, held Pakistan responsible for April 22's Pahalgam attack, which was an intelligence failure on the part of India.
Research assistant Mohammad Usman presented a paper on 'Water Assets and Resources'. He said that if India were to stop the water flow to Pakistan, it would risk flooding its own upper regions. "But if they stopped our water during the dry seasons, it could be a concern for us because the flow of water is lower and storage matters the most. It can affect our farmers, which could result in lower yields," he said.
"As for the weaponi-sation of water, or the water bomb, a concept when the upper riparian state blocks the flow of water and then suddenly releases a significant amount of water without notifying the lower riparian state, you have a big flood. Here in the case of Pakistan and India, Pakistan is the lower riparian state and India the upper riparian state.
But in the case of China and India, China is the upper riparian state and India the lower riparian state, especially in Brahmaputra. China can also block India's water," he pointed out.
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