India plans to build big dams over Brahmaputra: Bharti

[Hindustani78]

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/646692/sushma-meet-wang-yi-discuss.html

Anirban Bhaumik, New Delhi, DH News Service, Dec 6 2017, 20:37 IST

India may next week convey to China its concerns over deteriorating quality of water in river Siang, which flows into Arunachal Pradesh from Tibet Autonomous Region of the neighbouring country.

New Delhi is likely to propose widening of the ambit of its existing mechanism with Beijing for hydrological data sharing so that both the nations could work together to check deterioration of quality of waters in the trans-boundary rivers.

With waters of Siang, which joins Lohit and Dibang rivers downstream and turns into the Brahmaputra in Assam, turning excessively muddy over the past couple of months; New Delhi is preparing to take it up with Beijing. The issue may come up during External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's bilateral meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sideline of the Russia-India-China trilateral talks in New Delhi early next week, sources told the DH on Wednesday.

Swaraj is likely to ask Wang to restart sharing of data on trans-boundary rivers.

The two neighbouring nations have bilateral arrangements requiring China to share with India hydrological data on cross-border river-systems, like Brahmaputra and Sutlej, between May 15 and October 15 every year. But Beijing shared no data with New Delhi during the stipulated period this year. Beijing's reluctance to share river data with New Delhi added yet another irritant to the bilateral relation, which was already been strained and reached at its lowest ebb during the recent 72-day long face-off between Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army at Doklam Plateau along the disputed China-Bhutan border.

Sources said that New Delhi might propose to start negotiations with Beijing for widening the existing bilateral mechanism so that both the nations could work together to maintain the quality of waters in the trans-boundary rivers and protect the fragile ecology along the disputed boundary between them.

The waters of river Siang of late turned muddy and slushy right from Geling (the point where it enters India from China) in Upper Siang district in Arunachal Pradesh.

Ninong Erring, a Congress MP from Arunachal East constituency, recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, drawing his attention to rise in turbidity of waters in Siang. He noted that Siang turned murky just a few weeks after certain media reports brought to light Beijing's plan to build a 600 Km-long underground tunnel to divert water from the river to Taklamakan desert in north-west China.

Arjun Ram Meghwal, union minister of state for water resources, however, said that Siang had possibly turned muddy after a recent earthquake and landslide in Tibetan Autonomous Region of China.

Pema Khandu, Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh, recently visited Yingkiong in Upper Siang district of the State and also tweeted about the poor quality of water in river Siang.

Beijing, which claims Arunachal Pradesh to be a part of its own territory, dismissed media reports that construction works in areas under its control turned the river murky. An article in China's state-run daily Global Times referred to Arunachal Pradesh as "Southern Tibet" and noted that it was the responsibility of the Chinese Government to protect the "local environment".

New Delhi has since long been concerned over Beijing's purported plan to build big dams in the upper and middle reaches of Yarlung Tsangpo (The Brahmaputra in Tibet Autonomous Region of China) as part of its proposed mammoth South-to-North water diversion project. China has not yet responded positively to India's proposal for starting negotiation for a comprehensive agreement on trans-boundary rivers.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/647949/china-denies-building-tunnel-divert.html

Press Trust of India, Beijing, Dec 13 2017, 19:49 IST

In October, China had denied reports of plans to build 1000-km long tunnel to divert Brahmaputra waters to the arid regions of Xinjiang, saying the report is untrue and false. File photo

China today denied plans to construct a tunnel to divert Brahmaputra river waters amid reports of highly polluted waters from its tributary Siang flowing into India.

"I would like to point out that China's position on the eastern part of the China-India border is consistent and clear," Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in response to questions about the reports on blackened, muddy waters with cement and sledge of the Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh.

He refuted reports that it may due to a tunnel being constructed on Chinese side.

"I have never heard of the project mentioned by the Indian side. It is hoped that the Indian side will not conduct unfounded speculation and reports," he said in a written response to a question in this regard.

In October, China had denied reports of plans to build 1000-km long tunnel to divert Brahmaputra waters to the arid regions of Xinjiang, saying the report is untrue and false.

There is, however, no explanation for the highly-polluted waters in Siang river.

Brahmaputra originates in Tibet where it is called Yarlung Tsangpo and is known as Siang in Arunachal Pradesh before it enters Assam and flows southwards to the sea through Bangladesh.


In 2016, China had declared that it would be building a dam on a tributary of the river, sparking concerns of its potential downstream impact in India.

Arunachal Pradesh State Water Quality Testing Laboratory (SWQTL) in a recent report said the water of the Siang river, which has turned dark and muddy, has become unfit for human consumption.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu had drawn the attention of the Centre on the river's contamination, which he said might have been caused due to activities on the Chinese side and asked the Government of India to take up the matter with Beijing.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/india...terpart-mea/story-cSJy4OsRSyC5TCXEm9PLzI.html

MEA spokesperson rejects suggestions that there were heated exchanges during the meeting between the foreign ministers of India and China
Updated: Dec 14, 2017 20:17 IST
Press Trust of India

Villagers collect drinking water from the dried bed of Siang River at Berasapori village some 560 kms from Guwahati. (AFP File Photo)


New Delhi

India on Thursday expressed “concern” over the contamination of the Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh and said it has ascertained certain facts on the issue, which figured during the meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi here.

External Affairs Minister Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar also said the ministry was coordinating with the water resources ministry while referring to existing mechanisms between India and China to deal with issues pertaining to waters.

“Naturally, it is a matter of concern to us. We are coordinating with water resources ministry. We have ascertained certain facts,” Kumar said.

He was asked about the Siang river water “unfit” for human consumption, amid speculation that the water was contaminated due to China. The Siang river, which flows as Yarlung Tsangpo from southern Tibet, becomes the Brahmaputra river in Assam.

Last week, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu had expressed concern over the high content of Nephelometric Turbidity Unit (NTU) in the Siang in the state and said his government was in constant touch with the Centre so that New Delhi could take up the issue with China.

Kumar also said the issue had come up during the meeting between Swaraj and Wang. However, he did not elaborate.

The spokesperson also rejected suggestions that there were heated exchanges during the meeting between the foreign ministers of India and China. Swaraj and Wang met on December 11 on the sidelines of Russia-India-China (RIC) meeting.

“All issues were discussed but not in a manner it was projected,” he said while reacting to media reports carrying Wang’s remarks.

According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Wang had told Swaraj that “although the standoff ended eventually through diplomatic means more than two months later, lessons must be learned and efforts must be made to avoid such an incident in the future. The standoff put the bilateral relations under severe pressure.”

The ministry had issued a statement regarding the issues discussed in the meeting that included the Doklam episode.

Both the external affairs minister and the Chinese foreign minister noted the challenge it (Doklam) had posed to the relationship and expressed satisfaction that it was resolved with the disengagement of troops at the face-off site through concerted diplomatic communications, the MEA statement had said.

Chinese and Indian troops were locked in a 73-day border standoff from June 16 when Indian soldiers stopped Chinese personnel from building a key road close to India’s ‘chicken’s neck’ corridor.

On August 28, India announced the “disengagement” between the soldiers of the two countries.

The road was being built by China in an area also claimed by Bhutan.

 

[Hindustani78]

• MPs express concern over pollution in Brahmaputra river

http://www.ptinews.com/news/9333688_MPs-express-concern-over-pollution-in-Brahmaputra-river.html

14:30 HRS IST
New Delhi, Dec 19 (PTI) Members in the Lok Sabha today expressed concern over the contamination of the Brahmaputra river as they asked the government to take up the matter with China from where the river flows into India and inform Parliament about it.

Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the matter was of serious concern and assured the House that he will inform "the highest level in government" about it.

Bhartruhari Mahtab (BJD) raised the issue of increased level of pollutants in the river, also known as Siang, which flows into Arunachal Pradesh from south Tibet in China before getting into Assam.

He said some reports have blamed China for it and noted that the Arunachal Pradesh government has written to the Centre as its water was not fit for drinking.

He asked the government to make public its discussion with China on the issue.

Bijoya Chakravarty (BJP), who hails from Assam, also joined him and asked the government to take up the matter with China.

She said a delegation, including her, had met Home Minister Rajnath Singh who had assured them that he would inform External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj about it.

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/na...iversion-of-tsangpo-ex-army-chief/538553.html

Kolkata, February 4

The alleged diversion of water of Tsangpo-Bramhaputra river by China does not pose any threat to India, Former Army Chief General (retd) Shankar Roy Chowdhury said.

Even if the charge is true, the river, which is the mighty Brahmaputra in India, has enough tributaries with adequate rainfall in catchment areas after coming down to the plains to bring in water to it, he said.

“Even if China diverts water of the river, India does not need to worry,” Roy Chowdhury said at a symposium ‘India-China relations — Ways to resolve contentious issues’.

China has denied reports that it is diverting water of Tsangpo to Xinjiang province.

Former National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, however, took a stronger view of the issue, saying China is trying to start a water war with India.

“China is actively considering a water war over the Brahmaputra,” he said.

Gen Roy Chowdhury blamed the laziness and lack of on the part of the Indian economic sector for lagging behind the Chinese in the industrial and manufacturing front.

Referring to the dumping of Chinese goods in India, including even the Lord Ganesha idols, he said it is India’s fault not to have pursued a three-pronged approach of “cooperate, compete and confront.”

“It is the lazy and greedy Indian economic sector to blame, and not China. We should manufacture good quality products cheaper than China,” he said.

He said ‘Made in China’ products have overtaken India a long ago and asserted that the Indian manufacturing sector should be strengthened in order to compete with that country.

With the Asian economy outgrowing the western economy, focus has shifted from the USA and Europe to Asia and from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, Narayanan said.

“Rarely has the world seen the rise of two populations at one time and that too in the same region and the results have not been benign; China and India are competing on several counts - political, economic and military,” Narayanan said.

Though the USA is at present their main adversary, the Chinese feel that the real challenge they face will be from India, the former NSA said at the two-day symposium organised by the Research Centre for Eastern and North Eastern Regional Studies, a Kolkata-based think-tank, that ended yesterday.

Former Indian Air Force chief Air Marshal (retd) Arup Raha said, to counter the Chinese threat of befriending our neighbours, India should engage more with these countries by selling them military hardware and also by holding joint military exercises, both bilateral and multi-lateral. PTI

 

[Hindustani78]

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/status-quo-in-doklam-sushma-swaraj/540737.html

In response to a question on whether China had stopped providing information regarding the flow of Himachal Pradesh’s Parchu river, Singh said Beijing gives New Delhi hydrological data on the Brahmaputra (known as Yarlong Zangbo in China) and Sutlej river (Langqen Zangbo of which Parechu is a tributary) during flood seasons under the existing bilateral MoU.

“The Chinese side did not provide the hydrological information with respect to either of these two rivers in 2017. The issue has been taken up the Chinese side, which has conveyed that non-provision of data was due to technical reasons,” he said.

 

[Hindustani78]

https://www.thehindu.com/news/natio...ues-19-stranded-on-island/article24836342.ece

Water level subsides; scare triggered by an alert from China on swelling of Tsangpo
The water level of Siang river in Arunachal Pradesh has subsided after a scare triggered by an alert from China to India about the swelling of Tsangpo following heavy rain in Tibet. The water of the river, officials said, has turned very muddy.

The Tsangpo – Yarlung Zangbo, as it is known in China – flows into Arunachal Pradesh as the Siang, which meets two other rivers in Assam downstream to become the Brahmaputra.

As people along the banks of the Siang heaved a sigh of relief, the Indian Air Force evacuated 19 people stranded on an island in the river at Jampani under Sille-Oyan circle of East Siang district on Friday. The spot is about 27 km from East Siang district headquarters Pasighat.

“An Mi17 helicopter from Mohanbarie airport in Assam’s Dibrugarh district carried out six sorties and rescued the 19 people, including six children, in an hour since 4.38 a.m.,” an IAF spokesperson said.

Six people were winched up in areas where the helicopter could not land. Those rescued were mostly farmers who ventured out before the water surge for cattle grazing. Local officials said many animals remain stranded on the island.

East Siang’s deputy commissioner Tamiyo Tatak had on Thursday night shot off a letter to the IAF’s station commander in Dibrugarh requesting evacuation of an estimated 30 stranded people.

“The water volume of the Siang river has come down to the level we normally have during the rainy season. But the water is high on turbidity and there’s been a lot of erosion along the banks,” Mr. Tatak told The Hindu.

Monitoring river flow
In Upper Siang district, where the Tsangpo enters India to become the Siang, officials are monitoring the flow of the river. “The water was flowing normally when last observed,” Nijhon Danggen, circle officer of Tuting bordering China, said.

The turbidity of Siang is believed to be the outcome of a natural dam formed across the Tsangpo because of landslides caused by major earthquakes in Tibet in 2017. Around that time, the Siang turned turbid near Pasighat. “We have asked the experts to study the water quality,” Mr. Tatak said.

 

[Hindustani78]

Delhi, September 03, 2019 22:14 IST
Updated: September 03, 2019 22:14 IST

With its origin in the Manasarovar Lake Region near the Mount Kailash located on the northern side of the Himalayas. River Brahmaputra flows along southern Chinese Occupied Indian Territories in Tibbat to break through the Himalayas in great gorges and into Arunachalam. River Brahmaputra flows southwest through the Assam Valley as Brahmaputra and south through Bangladesh as the Jamuna (not to be mistaken with Yamuna of India). In the vast Ganges Delta, River Brahmaputra merges with the Padma, the popular name of the river Ganges in Bangladesh, and finally, after merging with Padma, it becomes the Meghna and from here, it flows as Meghna river before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.

‘One hydro power plant has been built & two others are under construction on the Ancient Brahmaputra River which Chinese Religious Scholars call Yarlung Zangbo River Zone’.

People's Republic of China has built one and is constructing two more run-of-the-river hydro power plants on the Ancient Brahmaputra River which Chinese Religious Scholars Yarlung Zangbo River Zone in the Disputed Territories, a top Chinese official told a group of visiting Pakistan journalists recently.


“There is no storage involved in these projects,” Yu Xingjun, Consul in the Chinese Water Resources Ministry, said in response to a specific question from Pakistan Journalists. There have been unverified media reports from time to time that the Chinese government was building some major Military projects around Ancient River Brahmaputra which is called as Yarlung Zangbo Zone in the Disputed Territories which are Holy sites for the Hindu Rashtra.

 

[Hindustani78]

According to Chinese Experts, one 510 MW hydro power plant had been built and two others were under construction. The Generating Capacity of the two under-construction plant was not immediately available, said Chinese Water Resources Ministry Officials.

The top Chinese official dealing with India on issues which are part of the Disputed Territories and the Chinese Establishment was at pains to emphasise that China was using less than 1% of the Ancient River Brahmaputra which Chinese Religious Scholars call as Yarlung Zangbo Zone as an upper riparian state. “There is enough water to sustain the lower riparian states. The outbound quality of the water is also excellent,” Mr. Yu claimed. However, the Tibetan people had a basic right to use their water resources.



Information sharing
According to the official, China was sticking to a bilateral agreement with India to supply data on water flow levels at a time of possible floods which is part of the border Dispute Settlement Mechanism. As of now, this information sharing on flood information was confined to two rivers — the Ancient River Brahmaputra which Chinese Religious Scholars call as Yarlung Zangbo and the Sutlej.

Top Chinese official added that the Chinese government had plans to divert river waters to those provinces that were suffering from scarcity. This was part and parcel of China’s transition from “high speed to high quality development".


Asked whether a large country like China had issues between provinces when it came to water sharing, Top Chinese official replied in the affirmative. China faced water-sharing issues especially in regard to the Yellow River, Top Chinese official said. “These provinces [along the Yellow River] would like to have more water for themselves.”

Top Chinese official said seven commissions to manage water basins in China, which were also responsible for allocating individual share for the provinces as well. “They [the commissions] will allocate the quota for every province,” Top Chinese official added.

Seven Commissions is between Seven Nations. China, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in Indian Ocean , South China Sea.

China, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, Rus Federation in Pacific Ocean, North China Sea and South China Sea.