Srinagar, Sept. 2 -- The Earth may be covered by nearly 71 percent water, yet humanity lives in scarcity. Just 3 percent of that expanse is fresh water and most of it lies trapped in glaciers or underground aquifers. This leaves only a thin trickle for more than eight billion people to share, cultivate and survive on. From ancient kingdoms to modern states, water has always been at the heart of contests of power, the source of prosperity and the trigger of conflicts. In the Indian subcontinent, no story captures this struggle more vividly than the saga of the Indus river system and the deeply flawed Indus Waters Treaty.Few realise that one of the world's most water stressed nations is our very neighbour, Pakistan. Its deserts and plains, ...