## 6 Water Sharing  
The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River system is one of the most extensive freshwater river systems in the world. Hundreds of millions of people from Bangladesh, Nepal, India, China, and Bhutan live in the basins of this transboundary river system [74]. However, the sharing of water among the user countries causes socio-political tensions among them, especially between India and Bangladesh [75]. Banglades and India share 4096 km of land borders and 54 rivers that flow from India to Bangladesh [76]. Bangladesh is highly dependent on India for its fresh water and, as a lower riparian country, it has no control over them [77]. Despite having a close relationship in many cases, trans-boundary water sharing between these countries has been a matter of discord for over half a century [78]. Increased water demand and climate change associated with irregular rainfall patterns led to water scarcity in these areas, which made the water resource management and sharing issues an unsolvable matter [79]. Therefore, the conflict between the two countries dates to the early 1960s [75; 80; 81]. According to [PERSON] [82], who was one of the pioneer experts in trans-boundary water management, the water sharing problem between Bangladesh and India is a socio-political issue rather than a socio-economic issue, which made it more complex to solve. Since 1972, Bangladesh and India have been working for equitable water sharing of all rivers common between Bangladesh and India, pursuant to the establishment of the Indo-Banglades Joint Rivers Commission through the joint declaration of the Prime Minister's of Bangladesh and India on 19 March 1972 and the subsequent signing of the'statute of the Joint Rivers Commission' on 24 November 1972. However, the Joint RiversCommission did not work well due to the lack of proper cooperation from India [80]. The primary disagreements between Pakistan (East Pakistan) and India started in 1951 when the Indian plan for the construction of Farakka Barrage for diverting Ganges waters to improve the navigability of the Kolkata port was released (published in an Indian newspaper in 1951). Due to the construction of the Farakka barrage on the Ganges River to maintain the navigability of Calcutta port, about 17 km upstream of Bangladesh, by redirecting water from the Ganges to the Hooghly River [83, 84], water flow in the Bangladesh part significantly reduced since the barrage began its operation in 1975 and resulted in a severe drought and salinity problems in the southwestern part of Bangladesh [85]. Water experts from the Bangladesh side often claimed that the dry season flow in Bangladesh was considerably reduced when India started the diversion of the Ganges water at Farakka in 1975 [80, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90]. The diversion of water by India using the Farakka Barrage caused dissatisfaction among Bangladesh people. The first popular anti-Farakka movement 'the Farakka Long March' was led by popular political leader [PERSON] [PERSON] in May 1976, demanding the demolition of the Farakka Barrage and the rightful distribution of Ganges water to protect Padma River from drying up and the desertification of Bangladesh [91, 92]. In 1951, when Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan, concern was raised about the proposed construction of the Farakka Barrage on the Ganges River. Its constriction was started in 1964. The first Ganges water agreement between Bangladesh and India was signed in 1977, and two memorandums of understanding (MoUs) were signed in 1982. Bangladesh and India have shared the available water at Farakka from 1 January to 31 May every year since 1997 as per GWT, 1996, based on a given formula as well as ensuring 35,000 guaranteed cusec to each country in three alternate ten-day periods starting from 11 March to 10 May. India also planned to divert water from the Brahmaputra River to the Ganges River, which was objected by Bangladesh, considering the harmful impacts of the plan, and the negotiation continued without any fruitful result [93].