LAHORE: Pakistan must not support the proposed US-British resolution in the UN Security Council on the transfer of power to Iraq's interim government on July 1, Dr Mubashir Hasan, founding member of the Pak-India Peoples Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) and former finance minister, has said.

In a statement issued on Friday, Dr Hasan said the resolution was too vague on the question of transferring full sovereignty to the Iraqi nation. Some members of the Security Council had spoken of the deficiency but Pakistan had remained quiet. Pakistan must speak up, he said.

He said the new Iraqi government must have full powers from July 1 to accept or expel any foreigner from its soil. It was unlikely that the new rulers would ask the coalition military forces to leave. The resolution before the council must give them the necessary powers unambiguously, he said.

Dr Hasan accused the US of "going through the motions" because it had accomplished its mission in Iraq. It was pretending to leave only because it could not stay there under the circumstances. After the US elections, it would be another America determined to complete the mission undertaken by the present administration, he said, adding that George W Bush had strategic objectives in Iraq.

Dr Hasan predicted that America would remain in trouble in Iraq and Southwest Asia for a number of years. The upheaval in Iraq would take time to settle. "Who knows what turn events will take in the coming months and years," he said.

However, the engineers, lawyers and ill-informed foreign policy establishments of India and Pakistan have erred in correctly dealing with the Baglihar Dam issue. The negotiations between the two countries broke down. Pakistan has gone to the World Bank for interpretation of certain clauses of the Treaty. India seems determined to complete the project as planned.

The course of events is unfortunate. The spirit of the Treaty is not being respected. When the two countries were making progress in the Composite Dialogue, the issue of the dam should not have been allowed to become controversial.

The Indus Waters Treaty lays out in precise detail how the so-called "Run of River" Hydroelectric Project shall be built and operated for generation of electrical power. The Treaty lays down that for the project situated on the river Chenab, as Bagilhar:

"..... the volume of water delivered into the river below the plant in any one period of 24 hours shall not be less than 50 % and not more than 130 % of the volume received above the plant during the same 24 hour period." The Treaty further specifies that the hydroelectric plant shall be so operated that "(a) the volume of water received in the river upstream of the Plant, during any period of seven consecutive days shall be delivered into the river below the Plant during the same seven days period." (Clause 15, Annexure D).

The clause, indeed, defines a run-of-the-river project. Other clauses in the Treaty make provisions for tolerances allowed in these volumes of flow and how annual fillings and depletions shall be carried out by India.

Once the project is in operation all the water that flows into its lake in one week is to be released downstream during the same week. It may be made to pass through electrical power generating turbines, or allowed freely to flow over a spillway or both. No storage is allowed except during the Monsoons when there is excess of water.

In several respects the concept of a Run-of-River project is similar to that of a vault of a bank which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Cash is deposited and withdrawn from bank all the time. What comes in the bank has to go out. However, a vault is needed to keep safely what has to come in and what has to go out during a day's, a week's or a year's transaction. Depending upon the requirements of the flow of cash, no banker would build too small or too large a vault, as vault is very expensive to build.

An honest banker will also not make secret compartments in his vault in which the cash not properly shown in the accounts can be kept. The same principle, more or less, is applicable to the design of the lake behind the run-of-river dam. At the moment, Pakistani engineers suspect, rightly or wrongly, that the design of the Bagilhar project provides for storage of such volumes of water as are not allowed by the Treaty to be stored

The reasons why Pakistan has gone to the World Bank seem to be that in its view the design of the Bagilhar Dam being constructed by India violates the criteria laid down in Paragraph 8 of Annexure D to the Treaty. For instance Clause 8, Sub-Clause (a) lays down: "8 (a) The works themselves shall not be capable of raising artificially the water level in the Operating Pool above the Full Pondage Level specified in the design."

The power generated at a hydroelectric plant is not constant during all hours of the day and night or all days of the week. We need more power during the day and less at night, more on week days, less on holidays. Thus the demand of electricity on a powerhouse keeps changing. As demand goes down a generator may be shut or slowed down which means that the quantity of water passing through one or more turbine will be reduced, which in turn would mean that the level in the reservoir shall go up a little.

The rise of water level in the reservoir due to fluctuations in the discharge through turbines is classified as permissible and the Treaty allows this minimal raise. However, if a design allows water level to rise through a construction feature incorporated in the design, that rise of water level is termed artificial by the Treaty and is prohibited. Pakistan's case seems to be that the Bagilhar design does incorporate features to store water and/or raise levels artificially.

One such feature is that the top of the concrete dam is 4.5 meters above the highest water level in the lake which, according to Pakistani engineers is excessive. The extra height seems to be redundant as far as the operation of the dam designed as present is concerned. However it will become usable when India decides to raise the level of the lake at a future date. Should that be the case and if the Treaty permits the raising of the dam at a later date, then it would be prudent for India to wait until then. Pakistan built Mangla dam in the Sixties and left the scope of it being raised by another 40 feet which, incidentally Pakistan intends to do now. India can also defer raising the height of the dam to a later date.

Another feature of the present design is the level of an outlet which Pakistan objects as being placed too low in the wall of the dam. The Treaty permits low level outlets under certain conditions. Unless Pakistan and India reveal the data and the experimental studies which constitute the basis of their arguments it is not possible to comment on the validity of their stand in this article.

A major objection of Pakistan relates to Clause 8, Sub-Clause (c) of Annexure D. This Sub-Clause lays down: "8 (c) The maximum Pondage in the Operating Pool shall not exceed twice the Pondage required for Firm Power."

The Pondage means that limited volume of stored water which is only sufficient to meet fluctuations in the discharge of the turbines arising from variations in the daily and the weekly loads on the plant. Since turbines are designed to operate at different capacities - 100 %, 80 %, 60 % etc - the treaty limits the Pondage to twice the pondage for Firm Power, that is, the output of turbines which is based on the mean discharge of the river.

The method of calculating Firm Power is described in detail in the Treaty. If the engineers of Pakistan and India do not agree on the figure and even assuming that one or both of them do not agree on what the man from the World Bank, to whom the case has been referred, says the decision can be taken at political level as it is always done when professionals on the two sides of a case do not agree but the political leaders so desire.

For example, at some point in the Nineteenth century, the Czar of Russia ordered the building of railway line from Moscow to St Petersburg. His engineers could not agree on the alignment of the railway line that had to pass through extensive marshlands. Exasperated by the indecision of the engineers, he called for the map and drew a line ordered "Build along this line". The railway line was built and is running since then.

Should Indian engineers claim that in the present case the figure should be say, 80 units and Pakistanis says 50 then, surely, General Pervez Musharraf and Dr Manmohan Singh can sit down and dictate a figure to engineers to work on. Nothing strategic is involved. The interest of giving momentum to the Composite Dialogue is far more important.

Published in Daily Times on Friday, May 27, 2005

Staff Report

LAHORE: Pakistan and India should expand education links and exchange teachers to boost higher education in both countries, said speakers in the education session of a four-day conference titled 'assessing people-to-people initiatives'. The conference, arranged by civil society groups of India and Pakistan, started on May 24 at a local hotel. Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and human rights activist, said that Pakistan's higher education sector was very weak and there was need to exchange faculty of science and technology from Indian universities. Samina Rehman told the participants about Lahore Grammar School students' visit to India and Indian students' visit to Pakistan. Rina Kashyap said that exchanges of students and teachers have started between Lahore Kinnaird College for Women and Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi. Jamila Verghese also spoke during the education session. Earlier, Anees Haroon, Beena Sarwar, Kamla Bhasin and Khawar Mumtaz spoke on the role of women in human rights and peace movements. They said that active representation of women was required in all walks of life.

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Call for 25% cut in Pakistani and Indian armies

Published in 12 May 2005 Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistan and India should cut their armies by 25 percent and end their missile so they can increase spending on the social welfare, speakers at a seminar said on Wednesday.

Addressing the seminar on 'Missile race in South Asia,' arranged by the Pak-India People's Forum for Peace and Democracy, the speakers urged the two countries to enhance people-to-people contact for better security, prosperity and peace.

Dr Mubashir Hassan, founder of the peace forum, asked Pakistan and India to reduce their armies and destroy nuclear weapons. He said that poverty was the issue to be addressed. He praised the government for removing the models of the Chagai hills and missiles from Lahore and Multan.

Journalist Aziz Mazher, who presided over the seminar, stressed the need for a committed effort for peace and condemned the nuclear weapons race between the two countries. Journalist Rashid Rehman also called for peace and normalisation of relations between Pakistan and India. Malik Saeed Hassan, Ehsan Wayen and advocate Liaqat Ali also spoke on the occasion.

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