Uttam Kumar Sinha

Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha's chapter ‘India and China Water Issues’ has been published in Rajiv Narayanan and Qin Yonghui (eds.) ‘India and China Building Strategic Trust’, USI, New Delhi.

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• Published: 19 February, 2021

Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s book ‘Indus Basin Uninterrupted’ is published by the Penguin Random House, 2021.

The book, with an easy narration and rich archival material, brings alive a meandering journey of peace, conflict and commerce on the Indus basin. The Indus system of rivers, as a powerful symbol of the passage of time, represents not only the interdependence and interpenetration of land and water, but equally the unfolding of political identities, social churning and economic returns. From Alexander’s campaign to Qásim crossing the Indus and laying the foundation of Muslim rule in India; from the foreign invaders and their ‘loot and scoot’ to the Mughal rulers’ perspective on hydrology and water use; from the British ‘great game’ on the Indus basin to the bitter and bloody Partition; and finally, as a historical pause, the signing of the Indus Waters Treaty—this book is a spectrum of spectacular events, turning points and of personalities and characters and their actions that were full of marvel.

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• Published: 11 February, 2021

Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s opinion piece ‘Oil Import needs more options’ has been published in Hindi daily ‘Prabhat Khabar’ on December 4, 2020.

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• Published: 4 December, 2020

Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s article ‘Indus Water Treaty at 60: Why there is a need to give it a fresh look’ has been published in ‘The Indian Express’ on September 19, 2020.

The role of India as a responsible upper riparian abiding by the provisions of the treaty has been remarkable, but the country, of late, is under pressure to rethink the extent to which it can remain committed to the provisions, as its overall political relations with Pakistan becomes intractable, writes Dr. Sinha.

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• Published: 19 September, 2020

Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s article ‘The Nehruvian imprint on Indus Waters Treaty’ has been published in ‘The Hindustan Times’ on September 19, 2020. The Indus Waters Treaty may have prevented “another Korea”, as the World Bank had anxiously observed, but it did not fundamentally change Pakistan’s lower riparian angst nor in its perception of the upper riparian dominance of India, writes Dr. Sinha.   

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• Published: 19 September, 2020

Manohar Parrikar IDSA scholars, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s chapter ‘Rebalancing Foreign Policy and Non-Traditional Security Issues’ and Dr. Ashok Behuria’ chapter ‘Domestic Drivers in India's Neighbourhood Policy’ have been published in the Volume ‘India's Foreign Policy: Surviving in a Turbulent World’, edited by Arvind Gupta and Anil Wadhwa, Sage Publication, 2020.

• Published: 13 August, 2020

Research Fellow Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s chapter ‘India in the Arctic Civilization Connect and Contemporary Policies’ has been published in the Volume ‘Observing the Arctic: Asia in the Arctic Council and Beyond’ by Chih Yuan Woon and Klaus Dodds, Edward Elgar Publication, UK, 2020.

• Published: 13 August, 2020

Research Fellow, Manohar Parrikar IDSA, Dr. Uttam Sinha’s article ‘Bal Gangadhar Tilak and the Arctic; has been published in The Indian Express on August 01, 2020.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak's emphasis on cultural-historical geography, evident in study of the Vedas, was an important intervention when geographical determinism was gaining dominance, writes Dr. Sinha.

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• Published: 1 August, 2020

Research Fellow, IDSA, presently on Lien to Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Dr Uttam Sinha’s article on climate change, titled ‘The climate-change challenge: Altering human behaviour a must’ has been published in South Asia Monitor on September 15, 2019.

Climate change, by all accounts, is the greatest existential threat that humanity has collectively witnessed, writes Dr. Sinha.

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• Published: 15 September, 2019

Research Fellow, IDSA, presently on Lien to Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Dr Uttam Sinha’s article on India’s hydro-diplomacy with its neighbours, titled ‘India’s need for hydro-diplomacy with China, Pakistan and Bangladesh’ has been published in South Asia Journal on July 22, 2019.

It is critical for India to articulate its middle riparian position, first to change the perception in the neighbourhood that India is a ‘water hegemon’, as is often expressed by Pakistan and Bangladesh, in spite of the robustness of the water treaties with these two countries; and second, to draw China into the South Asian water equation through a multilateral basin approach, thereby sensitising China to downstream concerns and upstream responsibilities, writes Dr Sinha.
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• Published: 22 July, 2019