Dhaka, Oct. 31 -- Political leaders, water experts and activists at a high level consultation meeting in Dhaka on Saturday called for mass mobilisation to create pressure to secure the river-water rights of the people of Bangladesh.

They opined that the government's approach to renew the Ganges Water Treaty which will expire in December next through expert-level talks would not succeed. Bangladesh should take a multilateral and basin-based strategy to secure water rights of this lowest riparian country which drains all eastern Himalayan rivers but is rendered dry in the lean season causing an environmental catastrophe.

The consultation meeting, organised by the International Farakka Committee (IFC) Bangladesh, was attended by political ...