Amid tense ties with Pakistan, India extended a goodwill gesture to the neighbouring country by apprising it about the flood situation in the Tawi River. India on Sunday alerted Pakistan about a flood alert in the Tawi river on humanitarian grounds, even as the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) continues to remain in abeyance in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack. This is believed to be the first significant contact since the India-Pakistan conflict in May. Following the alert received from India, Pakistani authorities have reportedly issued warnings for vulnerable areas.
According to the Jal Shakti Ministry, the communication was made to the Ministry of External Affairs, which then reached out to Islamabad. “While India used to exchange data with Pakistan before the suspension of the treaty, this move was made purely on humanitarian grounds,” sources said. Usually, such inputs are shared through the IW Commissioner. The Tawi river originates in the Himalayas and passes through the Jammu division before assembling in the Chenab in Pakistan.
The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has warned of heavy rains across most parts of the Pakistan until August 30. The NDMA warning comes as the country reels from earlier monsoon spells from June 26 to August 20, that claimed over 788 lives and 1,018 injuries as of Saturday.
India’s decision to suspend the decades-old treaty came after terrorists with cross-border links killed 26 people, mostly tourists, in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.
The origins of the IWT date back to the Partition. Indus, which has given India its name and its five tributaries, have sustained humanity on the subcontinent for millennia.
Both India and Pakistan depend on Indus water for agriculture, irrigation, and electricity, but without the Indus system water, Pakistan would face serious existential threats. So, at Partition, the two countries signed an agreement called the Standstill Agreement to allow the flow of water across the border, and when that agreement expired in 1948, they negotiated for nine long ears, mediated by the World Bank, to sign the IWT in September 1960.
The treaty gives India access to the waters of the three eastern rivers: the Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, while Pakistan gets the waters of the three western rivers: the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab, which account for almost 80 per cent of the shared basin’s water. While India can use the western rivers to generate hydel power and for limited irrigation, it cannot build infrastructure that restricts the flow of water from those rivers into Pakistan, either by storing or diverting their flows.
The treaty came under renewed scrutiny after the 2019 Pulwama attack. Critics argue that the agreement has been too favorable to Pakistan, despite its continued support for terrorism against India. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Independence Day, 2025, said that the country is ready to give a befitting reply to the nuclear blackmail issued by Pakistan on several occasions recently. While addressing the nation from the ramparts of the Red Fort, he stated that Pakistan’s nuclear threats will “no longer be tolerated.”
He criticized the water-sharing agreement under the Indus Water Treaty, calling it “unjust” and “one-sided.”