Links/Commentary, June 08 2014

Assorted commentary for today, 20/Prairial/222:

• The New York Times reports that Iran’s leaders “want to double the population to 150 million by 2050“. This comes on the very day that I discover the existence of plans by Iran to import about 1 bcm of potable water from the Pamir mountains of Tajikistan (across about 900 miles of the most politically unstable regions on earth). If they go through with both, this is not going to end well. 
• Belen Fernandez on Uruguay’s Pepe Mujica, a sort of cross between a retired Robin Hood and Bilbo Baggins. Uruguay hasn’t done too badly at all after a decade of the leftie/progressive Broad Front government.
• Whatever happened to the Taliban spokesman who ended up as a freshman at Yale?
• Some Chinese cities are bulldozing entire mountains to create new flat land to expand into, at an unprecedented scale. A group of Chinese researchers voice their concerns in this Nature piece. 

I’d like to end with this article from the India Water Portal: Sobering voices amongst all the hype over the next iteration of “Ganga rejuvenation” plans. The BJP’s quoting of the Sabarmati “clean-up” as an example is most illustrative (like the rest of the “Gujarat model”). From the article: 

“The BJP says that it will clean up the Ganga in Varanasi the way it has cleaned up the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. Ecologists, aware of the work on the Sabarmati, oppose this. The water flowing through the Sabarmati in its 10.4 km stretch in the city of Ahmedabad is actually the water of the Narmada River diverted into Sabarmati. This water was originally meant for Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat, they claim. Upstream of the Sabarmati, from the point where the Narmada main Canal releases water into it, the river is dry. “And if one goes down to the Vasna barrage, downstream of Ahmedabad along the Sabarmati, one can easily see the polluted river”, says Thakkar. “One could divert Narmada water into Sabarmati, because it is a small river. But if this model needs to be followed for a huge river like the Ganga, one will need to bring water from the Brahamputra. The cost of pumping water from the Narmada into the Kshipra river, the latest river interlinking project, is Rs. 16 lakh per day. One can imagine the cost if water has to be diverted into the Ganga. Is it sustainable?”, he asks.“