Bangladesh presses India before Ganges water treaty expires

With a 30-year Ganges water-sharing treaty with India expiring in December, Bangladesh fears failure to strike a new deal could deepen water shortages, threatening tens of millions of livelihoods. In Bangladesh’s parched Barind region, 72-year-old Bikash Soren remembers when the Ganges river flowing in from neighbouring India carried large boats past his village year-round. “For almost three months a year, you hardly see the river flowing,” the Protestant priest said. Two farmers died by suicide last season, he added, after dwindling water levels left their rice and wheat crops in tatters.…