INDIA’S renewed push to fast-track several disputed hydropower projects on the Indus basin rivers controlled by Pakistan is not a coincidence.

The move is less about New Delhi’s energy ambitions and more about its ulterior motives to deploy a shared water system as an instrument of coercion against Pakistan. The recent approval of the Dulhasti Stage-II hydropower project on the Chenab, following the revival of environmental clearances for the much larger, decades-old Sawalkote scheme, is a clear signal of a deliberate acceleration of dam-building on the river allocated to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty.

That this push comes in the aftermath of India’s unilateral suspension of the water treaty........

© Dawn