Daily English Vocab
PDF 21st March 2017
Shed the Indus Albatross
Indus Waters Treaty offers one-sided benefits to Pakistan, World Bank too is partisan.
At a time when India is haunted by a deepening water crisis, the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) hangs
like the proverbial albatross from its neck (Idiom - something that you have done or are
connected with that keeps causing you problems and stops you from being successful). In
1960, in the naïve (marked by or showing unaffected simplicity and lack of guile) hope that
water largesse (उदारता) would yield peace, India entered into a treaty that gave away the Indus
system's largest rivers as gifts to Pakistan. Since then that congenitally (जन्म से) hostile neighbour,
while drawing the full benefits from the treaty, has waged overt or covert aggression almost
continuously and is now using the IWT itself as a stick to beat India with, including by contriving
(manage to create an undesirable situation.) water disputes and internationalising them.
A partisan World Bank, meanwhile, has compounded matters further. Breaching IWT's terms
under which an arbitral (relating to or resulting from arbitration) tribunal cannot be established
while the parties' disagreement “is being dealt with by a neutral expert
“, the Bank proceeded in November to appoint both a court of arbitration (मध्यस्थता) (as demanded
by Pakistan) and a neutral expert (as suggested by India). It did so while admitting that the two
concurrent processes could make the treaty “unworkable over time”.
World Bank partisanship, however, is not new: IWT was the product of the Bank's activism, with
US government support, in making India embrace an unparalleled treaty that parcelled out the
largest three of the six rivers to Pakistan and made the Bank effectively a guarantor in the treaty's
initial phase. With much of its meat in its voluminous annexes this is an exhaustive, book-length
treaty with a patently neo-colonial structure that limits India's sovereignty to the basin of the three
smaller rivers.
The Bank's recent decision was made more bizarre by the fact that while the treaty explicitly
permits either party to seek a neutral expert's appointment, it specifies no such unilateral right for
a court of arbitration. In 2010, such an arbitral tribunal was appointed with both parties' consent.
The neutral expert, however, is empowered to refer the parties' disagreement, if need be, to a court
of arbitration.
The uproar (उपद्रव) that followed the World Bank's initiation of the dual processes forced it to
“pause”, but not terminate, its legally untenable decision. Stuck with a mess of its own making, it
is now prodding(उकसाना) India to bail it out by compromising with Pakistan over the two moderatesized Indian hydropower projects. But what Pakistan wants are design changes of the type it
enforced years ago in the Salal project, resulting in that plant silting up (become chocked). It is
threatening to target other Indian projects as well.
Yet Indian policy appears adrift (ददशाहीन/डावाांडोल). Indeed, India is backsliding even on its tentative
(सभ
ां ादवत/अदनदित) moves to deter Pakistani terrorism. For example, after last September's Uri attack,
it suspended the Permanent Indus Commission (PIC) with Pakistan. Now the suspension has been
lifted, allowing the PIC to meet in the aftermath of the state elections.
In truth the suspension was just a charade (an absurd pretence intended to create a pleasant
or respectable appearance.), with the PIC missing no meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi
reversed course in time for PIC, which meets at least once every financial year, to meet before the
current year ended on March 31in order to prepare its annual report by the treaty-stipulated June
1deadline. But while the suspension was widely publicised for political ends, the reversal happened
quietly.
Much of the media also fell for another charade that Modi sought to play to the hilt in Punjab
elections: He promised to end Punjab's water stress by utilising India's full IWT-allocated share of
the waters. His government, however, has initiated not a single new project to correct India's
abysmal (बहुत खराब) failure to tap its meagre 19.48% share of the Indus waters.
Instead, Modi has engaged in little more than eyewash: He has appointed a committee of
secretaries, not to find ways to fashion the Indus card to reform Pakistan's conduct, but farcically
(हास्यास्पद रूप से) to examine India's own rights under IWT over 56 years after it was signed. The
answer to India's serious under-utilisation of its share, which has resulted in Pakistan getting more
than 10 billion cubic metres (BCM) yearly in bonus waters on top of its staggering 167.2 BCM
allocation, is not a bureaucratic rigmarole (नीरस और दनरथथक प्रदिया) but political direction to speedily
build storage and other structures.
Despite Modi's declaration that “blood and water cannot flow together”, India is reluctant to hold
Pakistan to account by linking IWT's future to that renegade state's cessation of its unconventional
war. It is past time India shed its reticence.
Pakistan's interest lies in sustaining a unique treaty that incorporates water generosity to the lower
riparian (relating to or situated on the banks of a river.) on a scale unmatched by any other
pact in the world. Yet it is undermining its own interest by dredging up disputes with India and
running down IWT as ineffective for resolving them. By insisting that India must not ask what it
is getting in return but bear only IWT's burdens, even as it suffers Pakistan's proxy war, Islamabad
itself highlights the treaty's one-sided character.
In effect, Pakistan is offering India a significant opening to remake the terms of the Indus
engagement. This is an opportunity that India should not let go. The Indus potentially represents
the most potent instrument in India's arsenal (all the weapons and equipment that a country
has) more powerful than the nuclear option, which essentially is for deterrence.
Courtesy: The Times of India (Foreign Relations)
1. Largesse (noun): Generosity in bestowing something. (उदारता)
Synonyms: generosity, liberality, munificence, magnanimity.
Antonyms: malevolence, un-charitableness, unkindness.
Example: Because of the millionaire’s largesse, twenty underprivileged graduates now have
college scholarships.
2. Congenitally (adverb): Existing since birth/ present from birth. (जन्म से)
Synonyms: Genetically, By Birth, Naturally, Natively.
Example: Due to a congenital heart condition that ran in their family, the parents were worried
about their unborn child.
Related words:
Congenital (adjective) - Constituting an essential characteristic (जन्मजात)
3. Arbitration (noun): The use of an arbitrator(mediator) to settle a dispute. (मध्यस्थता)
Synonyms: Mediation, Conciliation, Adjudication.
Antonyms: Indecision.
Example: Because Judge Peterman has no experience in financial matters, he will never be asked
to arbitrate an accounting case.
Verb forms: Arbitrate, Arbitrated, Arbitrated
Related words:
Arbitrate (verb) - To settle an argument between two people or groups after hearing the opinions
and ideas of both.
4. Uproar (noun): A state of commotion, excitement, or disturbance. (उपद्रव)
Synonyms: Chaos, Clamor, Fracas, Turmoil, Bedlam.
Antonyms: Calmness, Harmony, Peace.
Example: The town was in an uproar over the proposal to build a jail.
Related words:
Uproarious (adjective) - कोलाहलपर्ू ण
Uproariously (adverb) - कोलाहल करते हुए
5. Prod (verb): Stimulate or persuade (someone who is reluctant or slow) to do something. (उकसाना)
Synonyms: Stimulate, Stir, Rouse, Prompt.
Antonyms: Discourage, Dissuade, Repress.
Example: You need a gentle prod to remind you that life is only what you make it.
Verb forms: Prod, Prodded, Prodded.
6. Adrift (noun): Without purpose, direction, or guidance. (ददशाहीन/डावाांडोल)
Synonyms: Unguided, Purposeless, Directionless,
Antonyms: Purposeful, Determined.
Example: The adrift policies of the company left it in an abysmal state.
7. Charade (noun): An absurd pretence intended to create a pleasant or respectable appearance.
(प्रहसन/स्वाांग)
Synonyms: Farce, Travesty, Pretence, Masquerade, Sham.
Antonyms: Honesty, Reality, Truth.
Example: They put on a convincing charade to keep her away from knowing about the surprise
party.
8. Tentative (adjective): Not certain or fixed; provisional. (सभ
ां ादवत/अदनदित)
Synonyms: Provisional, Unconfirmed, Unsettled, Indefinite,
Antonyms: Certain, Conclusive, Decisive, Definite, Final.
Example: Economists warn the government to not get excited about the tentative signs of
economic recovery.
Related words:
Tentatively (adverb) - अस्थायी तौर से
9. Farcical (adjective): Relating to or resembling farce, especially because of absurd or ridiculous
aspects. (हास्यास्पद)
Synonyms: Comical, Preposterous, Ludicrous, Absurd, Nonsensical.
Antonyms: Sensible, Serious, Unfunny.
Example: The actor was tired of playing farcical roles and asked his manager to find him serious
work.
Related words:
Farcically (adverb): (हास्यास्पद रूप से)
10. Rigmarole (noun): A lengthy and complicated procedure./ a complex and sometimes
ritualistic procedure. (नीरस और दनरथथक प्रदिया)
Synonyms: Fuss, Bafflegab, Double-Talk, Gibberish.
Example: Jill deleted the password on her phone to avoid the rigmarole of typing in the code
every time she wanted to use the phone.
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