The city began to stir back to life near dusk as traffic returned and some shops and cafes reopened on a day when schools and colleges stayed shut, shopping malls, restaurants and movie halls closed and taxis, buses and trucks kept off the roads to protest the ruling.

About 19,000 police enforced orders banning large public assemblies and street protests during the dawn-to-dusk strike in Bangalore, known as India's Silicon Valley.

"We arrested about 800 protesters and released them after the strike," said Bipin Gopalkrishna, a joint commissioner with the Bangalore police. "The strike was absolutely peaceful and there was no violence."

The sharing of river water is a highly emotive issue in India, where several regions are prone to droughts that hurt the livelihoods of farmers and other rural dwellers, who make up two-thirds of India's 1.1 billion population.

"The strike was a massive success," said Sanneerappan, a spokesman for the Karnataka Protection Forum that organised Monday's protest. "This was a call for justice for the people of Karnataka, a message to New Delhi."

The waters of the Cauvery, which rises in Karnataka and flows into the Bay of Bengal through Tamil Nadu, have been an age-old source of irrigation.

The river also provides drinking water for the neighbouring states of Kerala and Pondicherry.

The Cauvery tribunal, set up in 1990, this month awarded Tamil Nadu more than half of the Cauvery's water, and Karnataka just over a third, with the rest shared by the two other states.

The Karnataka Protection Forum has promised further protests in coming days, while former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, a local politician whose son is the state's chief minister, has urged the federal government to step in.

Many companies, including leading software makers such as Infosys Technologies, Wipro and Aztechsoft declared a holiday Monday and gave their staff an extended weekend while government employees applied for mass leave, local newspapers reported.

Electric and water utilities, hospitals, pharmacies and the media were exempted from the strike.

Some airlines cancelled scheduled flights, said a spokesman for Bangalore airport, adding the police arrested some protesters who attempted to force their way into the facility.

Protest organisers said 3,000 activists were arrested trying to block trains.

"This is the first time in the 10 years I have lived in Bangalore that I have seen the city like this," said Nirajan Chahwala, an accountant. "It's akin to a self-imposed, peaceful curfew."

The water dispute dates back to 1892, when a colonial-era law forced the Maharaja-ruled Mysore -- modern Karnataka state -- not to use the Cauvery waters without Tamil Nadu's permission. The modern dispute began in 1974 when the agreement lapsed.

The two states have repeatedly resorted to legal action to win a bigger share of the waters, and an interim court order in 1991 that ordered Karnataka to release more water to Tamil Nadu sparked riots against minority Tamils in Bangalore, leaving about 20 people dead.

earlier related report
World Bank decision on Indian Kashmir dam in dispute
New Delhi (AFP) Feb 12 - An expert appointed by the World Bank ruled Monday that a controversial dam India is building in the disputed Kashmir region does not violate a water-sharing treaty with Pakistan, reports said.

The expert overruled all the objections to the dam raised by Pakistan, except for asking India to lower the height of the proposed 144.5-metre (477 feet) dam by one-and-a-half metres, a Press Trust of India report said.

However, Pakistan insisted that the arbitrator, Swiss water expert Professor Raymond Lafitte, did find India guilty of violating the treaty in several ways.

Lafitte handed the decision to Indian and Pakistani diplomats in Bern, Switzerland, earlier Monday, to forward to officials in both countries.

Officials from India's Ministry of Water Resources were examining the decision, a spokesman told AFP.

"The decision has already come. They have been discussing that for more than one hour," said Sanjay Kumar, adding a statement on the ruling would be released later.

Pakistani Water and Power Minister Liaquat Jatoi said that Lafitte had told India to cut the distance between the top of the dam and the full level on the reservoir from 4.5 metres to three metres.

The expert also ruled that power intakes on the dam should be raised by three metres and that the size of the reservoir should be reduced, Jatoi told a news conference in Islamabad.

"The World Bank has delivered the verdict and it clearly says the design of the project is in violation of the treaty," the minister said.

A government statement said Pakistan "will carefully examine the determination and take appropriate steps in accordance with the treaty to protect our interests."

Pakistan fears the one-billion-dollar project could deprive its wheat-bowl state of Punjab of vital irrigation water. It says the dam violates a 45-year-old water sharing treaty brokered by the World Bank.

But India says the Baglihar hydroelectric project on the Chenab River does not violate the pact and could go a long way to ending routine 12-hour blackouts plaguing the Himalayan state.

At Pakistan's request, the World Bank in 2005 appointed Lafitte, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, to address differences with India over the dam being built in southern Indian Kashmir.

Under the terms of the 1960 treaty, the decision is final and binding on both parties, according to the World Bank.

Related Links
Water, Water Everywhere and Not A Drop To Drink...
Water, Water Everywhere and Not A Drop To Drink...
Water News - Science, Technology and Politics

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News