India, June 18 -- When Ismail Serageldin, then Vice President of the World Bank, warned in 1995 that "the wars of the next century will be fought over water," few took him seriously. Today, that foresight reverberates across the fault lines of Asia's geopolitical map.
As glaciers shrink, river flows diminish, and populations swell, water is no longer a shared life source - it has become a potent geopolitical lever.
Former UN Secretary - General Boutros Boutros - Ghali too had warned that water, especially in arid, densely populated regions, could spark future conflicts.
This warning is materialising in South Asia, where India, Pakistan, and China - three nuclear powers - are tangled in an uneasy hydrological balance. What was once theore...