In the wake of multiple problems emanating from the American war on terror, we have ignored, if not totally forgotten, the prospect of a drought in the country. The rivers have dried up completely. The mother of all our streams, River Indus, has had no inflow of water from the mountains and its level has reduced to pathetic lows. Tarbela dam has never run so low in storage as it is today. Jehlum River too is miserably low at Mangla dam. Chenab is unable to feed MR Link Canal and Upper Chenab Canal at Marala. Over half a million acres of the most fertile land of Sialkot, Gujranwala and the districts downstream from them are without even a drop of water, what to talk of water for cultivation. The net result of all these 2010 happening would open up floodgates of problems for us starting from food scarcity to abject hunger which means greater crime and other social upheavals. I saw on TV Marvi Memon and some Sindh cabinet ministers doing the Hindu offering of flowers to the Indus River, probably beseeching the 'Bhagwaan to grant water to Sindh. I have no wish to comment on the method of these sane and able people. But I urge all Muslims to offer prayers to Allah Almighty to forgive our sins and grant us rain. Most important of all, rather than making high-profile visits, we must talk to India to release water by honouring the Indus Water Treaty of 1959. Beas, Ravi and Sutlej are already no rivers worth the name. Let us pray that sanity prevails and the rulers of Pakistan do their bit to save Indus, Chenab and Jehlum. -AMJAD HABIB MIRZA, Lahore, January 30.