Tipaimukh dam will spell 'humanitarian disaster'

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LONDON, Aug 11 (bdnews24.com): The planned unilateral construction of Tipaimukh Dam by India will have serious environmental, ecological, social and economic effects on the millions of people of Bangladesh and northeastern India, speakers at a conference at the London School of Economics warned.
The conference, dubbed world forum, of the Voice for Justice World Forum Sunday called upon the governments of Bangladesh and India to enter into a joint feasibility study before construction of any dam for a fair and equitable solution to the impending environmental catastrophe.
It also underlined that as an upper riparian country India had a clear moral and legal obligation to consult Bangladesh before building any such dam.
Convener of the World Forum of the Voice For Justice, a global human rights and justice organisation, Dr Hasanat Hussain chaired the conference.
British Treasury Minister Stephen Timms congratulated the organisers for convening its world forum in London. He told the conference that the British government would always stand by the oppressed all over the world and work with people's organisations such as Voice For Justice (VFJ) to promote human rights and justice for the poor and marginalized.
This was the first world forum of VFJ convened at the London School of Economics by a coalition of its European, US, Canadian and Asian chapters. It was participated, among others, by expatriate Bangladeshi academicians, experts, VFJ members and a wide cross-section of people from the British-Bangladeshi community in the UK.
Abdul Moyeen Khan, former planning and science minister, and Sabih Uddin, former Bangladesh high commissioner to the UK, also participated in the discussion via Internet.
Concerns were raised at the conference that the possible construction of any such obstruction to common rivers would create humanitarian crisis for millions of people who depended on the rivers Surma and Kushiara.
Dr K M A Malik of University of Cardiff on Climate Change in South Asia also presented a paper at the conference with special reference to Bangladesh.