Robert F. Kennedy once said that a country's gross domestic product (GDP) measures “everything except that which makes life worthwhile”. The metric was developed in the 1930s and 1940s amid the upheaval of the Great Depression and global war. Even before the United Nations began requiring countries to collect data to report national GDP, Simon Kuznets, the metric's chief architect, had warned against equating its growth with well-being. GDP measures mainly market transactions. It ignores social costs, environmental impacts and income inequality.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal in the Eastern Himalayas are interconnected by the common river systems of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna (GBM). The GBM basin is home to approximately 700 million people, comprising over 10% of the world's population. The economy and environment of the region depend on water, but while the need for water is increasing, poor management and climate-related effects are making water supplies erratic.

South Asia is looking at an energy abyss. Millions of its people have no access to electricity or any other energy. This has put the brakes on the high growth rates in what should have been a dynamic region. High dependence on petroleum import coupled with mismanagement of their energy sector has made the SAARC countries extremely vulnerable. Cooperation could be a way out. Latha Jishnu travels across Pakistan to find out if India and its largest neighbour can set aside their mutual distrust and find solutions for the energy security of the region.