Bilateral Cooperation in the Case Study of the Kosi River Flooding

Globalization, International Institutions and Society Prof. Harish Naraindas School of Social Sciences – JNU Student Joscha Hoffmann

Bilateral cooperation in the case study of the Kosi river flooding
The Kosi is a “river in Nepal and northern India. With its tributaries, the Kosi drains the eastern third of Nepal and part of Tibet, including the country around Mount Everest. Some of its headstreams rise beyond the Nepalese border in Tibet. About […] 48 km north of the Indian-Nepalese frontier, the Kosi is joined by several major tributaries and breaks southward through the Siwālik Hills at the narrow Chatra Gorge. The river then emerges on the great plain of northern India in Bihār state on its way to the Ganges River, which it enters south of Purnea after a course of about […] 724 km.”1 This is the first passage in which the Encyclopedia Britannica describes the Kosi river, until this part the Kosi seems to be a straight forward river, but the interesting part follows immediately: “Because of its great outflushing of debris, the Kosi has no permanent channel in its course through the great plain of northern India. It has long been notorious for its devastating floods, which may rise as much as […] 9 m in 24 hours and which long made vast tracts of northern Bihār unsafe for habitation or cultivation.”2 The special features of the Kosi river are therefore its high amount of sediments it is transporting and the resulting floods – an aspect we will discuss later more detailed. The last flood of the Kosi river happened in August 2008, the repercussions of which were disastrous. The affected the livelihoods of about 50,000 Nepalese and a staggering 3.5 million Indians from Bihar. The number of deaths is still unknown but according to government officials at least 240 people died, media and locals estimate that the number has to be multiplied by ten to meet reality.3 This was by far not the first flood of the Kosi river and not even the worst, yet it advanced new

Bibliography: LINSLEY et all.: Water Resources Engineering, Singapore, 1992. SCHULLER, Mark: Deconstructing the Disaster after the Disaster: Conceptualizing Disaster Capitalism, in: Gunewardena, Nandini/Schuller, Mark: Capitalizing on Catastrophe, Plymouth, 2008. Internet 1: Encyclopedia Britannica, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 11.4.2009 Internet 2: DIXIT, Ajaya: Kosi Embankment Breach in Nepal: need for a Paradigm Shift in Responding to Floods, in Economic & Political WEEKLY, Vol. 44, Issue 6, P. 70-78, 2009, accessed via [e-mail] mailing list on 08/04/2009. Internet 3. POUDYAL Chhetri, Meen B.: A Practitioner’s View of Disaster Management in Nepal: Organisation, System, Problems and Prospects, in: Risk Management, Vol. 3, No. 4, P. 63-72, 2001, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 10.4.2009 Internet 4: SIDDIQUI, Zakarai: Report of the JNUSU Team’s Third Visit for Bihar Flood Relief Work, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 06.4.2009 Internet 5: SSVK (ed.): Kosi Flood 2008 an overview by SSVK, in the internet: Last update: 23.01.2009, researched on: 06.4.2009 Internet 6: MISHRA, Dinesh Kumar: Bihar Floods the inevitable has happened, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 06.4.2009 Internet 7: GOVERNEMNT of Bihar (ed.): Resolution on Kosi Rehabilitation Policy, Departement of Planning and Development, 2009, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 11.4.2009 Internet 8: SIDDIQUI, Zakarai: Understanding Kosi River, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 06.4.2009 Internet 9: BISHT, Medha: Revisiting the Kosi Agreement: Lessons for indo-Nepal Water Diplomacy, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 09.4.2009 Internet 10: The Hindu (ed.): Bihar Floods: the Inevitable has happened, in: The Hindu 09.11.2008, accessed via [e-mail] mailing list. Internet 11: DASGUPUTA, Kumkum: The man who told the Kosi sutra, in The Hindustan Times, 17.09.2008, accessed via [e-mail] mailing list. Internet 12: BALI, J. S.; Taming the Kosi River, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 10.4.2009 Internet 13: SHEPARD Forman/Derek Segaar: New Coalitions for Global Governance: The Changing Dynamics of Multilateralism, in the internet: Last update: unknown, researched on: 10.4.2009