Environment and Disaster Management › Environmental law and institutions
हिन्दी — Read in HindiRivers: sharing, linking and disputes
Disputes between States and how they are settled, river linking, and the rivers India shares with its other neighbours. It serves GS1 answers on resources and GS2 answers on federalism.
Foundation note: The Indus Waters Treaty
Showing 2 of 9 articles, those that changed from 1 to 30 September 2026.Show all
The Sone agreement
Copy link to The Sone agreementPrelims and Mains
The Sone agreement divides the water of the Sone, a right bank tributary that rises near Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh and joins the Ganga near Patna.
- Its water was first divided under the Bansagar Agreement of 1973 between Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and undivided Bihar.
Two routes to settle a river
- Article 262 of the Constitution lets Parliament provide by law for deciding disputes over interstate river waters, and keep the courts out of them.
- The Inter State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 is that law, under which the Centre constitutes a tribunal when a State asks.
- The other route is a negotiated agreement, which binds the States without any tribunal at all.
- Which route they take decides how long the water stays unshared.
What changed
1 Sep 2026
- Bihar and Jharkhand signed a memorandum of understanding dividing the Sone's water, ending a dispute open since Jharkhand was carved out in 2000.
- Bihar takes 5.75 million acre feet and Jharkhand 2, from the 7.75 that undivided Bihar held under the Bansagar Agreement.
The Brahmaputra and China
Copy link to The Brahmaputra and ChinaPrelims and Mains
The Brahmaputra is the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet, so India and Bangladesh lie downstream of whatever China builds on it.
1997
UN Watercourses Convention; neither India nor China has joined
2002
Flood season memorandum on the Brahmaputra
2005
Flood season memorandum on the Sutlej
2017
China stops sharing Brahmaputra data during the Doklam standoff
No treaty
- There is no water treaty between India and China, only the Expert Level Mechanism of 2006.
- It is a consultative channel through which China passes flood season data, and it commits China to nothing.
- Neither country is party to the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention, which requires equitable use, no significant harm and prior notice of upstream works.
The dam at the Great Bend
- China began building a dam at the Great Bend in July 2025, which its analysts project at about 60 GW, three times the Three Gorges.
- Water may be diverted through a tunnel, so India cannot judge the effect downstream.
- More than 14,000 glacial lakes dot the Tibetan Plateau, so upstream data is part of a warning system rather than a courtesy.
What changed
6 Sep 2026
- The Hindu reported that the Nepal glacial collapse is unlikely to halt China's mega dam plan, though the plateau's glacial lakes are growing fastest near its southern borders.
The Hindu, 6 Sep 2026