Tamil Nadu's anti-nuclear stir all set to spread to Andhra Pradesh, civil society plans agitations in February-March

By Our Representative
Anti-nuclear protests against the proposed Kovvada nuclear plant in Andhra Pradesh are all set to acquire a new momentum in South India following the decision of the local people to join hand with national-level activists of People’s Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE), National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), National Alliance of Anti-Nuclear Movement (NAAM), Human Rights Forum and Sanjeevini Paryavarana Seva Sangham.
Indications emerged following a meeting with local people that agitations would engulf Srikakulam district, where the project is proposed, on the lines of the one organized against the the Kudankulam project in Tamil Nadu. The word has gone around that in case of an accident it is not just the Kovvada village would be affected, but also other neighbouring areas.
An action plan, in coordination with civil society organizations and trade unions, was worked out, with plans for a series of protests in February and March. Kumar Sundaram of NMANE said following the civil society meeting that the “unsafe, uneconomic, eco-destructive” project was being set up set in “brazen contempt for the democratic rights and livelihoods of the local communities.”
The Andhra Pradesh government wants to turn Nellore and Srikakulam districts in the state into a nuclear hub as part of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) plan to generate over 60,000 MW of nuclear power across the country.
In Kovvada alone, around 2,400 acres of land is slated to be acquired for the proposed 6000 MW nuclear power plant. Tipped to be India’s biggest, the atomic power plant will have six reactors each with a capacity of 1000 MW each. The construction work for the project would start in 2018 and production would begin by 2024.
As of today, the total installed capacity of atomic power in India has not crossed 5,000 MW in the last 50 years.
Sundaram said, “The US and other western countries are waiting to dump their technology in the country. People should fight against tapping atomic power as many countries, including Sweden and Vietnam, have decided not to depend on atomic power.”
He added, “Shockingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting with US president Barrack Obama in January 2015, effectively gave away Indian people’s right to sue the nuclear suppliers in case of accident, which will be much more devastating than Fukushima. And still the BJP and its government talks of being nationalists, brandinganti-nuclear and environmental activists anti-national.”
He was referring to as many as 2,500 fisherfolk of Idinthakarai village, including women, elderly and adolescent, facing sedition charges since 2012 for peacefully opposing the Koodankulam nuclear plant in their vicinity.
Centre for Indian Trade Unions' Andhra Pradesh president Ch Narasinga Rao said, NPCIL is yet to obtain site clearance from the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board for the Kovvada project, while senior CPM leader B Krishna Murthy added, the nuclear power plant poses a threat to the entire North Andhra region, as it will be established in an earthquake-prone zone.
Sanjeevini Paryavarana Seva Sangham convener K Ramam said that the project would lead to heavy financial burden as the State government would be forced to buy atomic power at Rs 10 per unit when solar power was available at Rs 3 per unit in the country.
With plans to acquire around 2,400 acres of land for the construction of the project, about 1,500 families of various villages such as China Kovvada, Peda Kovvada, Tekkali and Ramachandrapuram face displacement.

Comments

World Bank clarifies: Its 26th rank to India not for universal access to power but for ease of doing business

By Our Representative
In a major embarrassment to the Government of India, the World Bank has reportedly clarified that it has not ranked India 26th out of 130 countries for providing power to its population. The top international banker’s clarification comes following Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal’s claim that India has “improved to 26 position from 99” in access to electricity in just one year.

"Misleading" satellite images being shared on Balakot surgical strike on Jaish camp

By Dr Vinay Kate*
With every passing day more questions are being raised about the surgical strike India did in Balakot as a response to Pulwama attacks. So far the Indian media has claimed mass casulaty of 300+ terrorists of Jaish-e-Mohammad in this surgical strike, but there is hardly any report from foreign media about the same.

Extreme repression, corporate loot, cultural genocide "characterise" India's tribal belt

Counterview Desk
As Lok Sabha polls approach, there is considerable ferment in one section of the population -- India's Adivasis, forming about 8.6 per cent of India's population. Things became particularly critical following the February 14, 2019 Supreme Court order, allegedly seeking to evict lakhs of tribals from their forest lands.

Industry in India "barely growing", export growth 0%, whither moral anchors?

Counterview Desk
In a sharp critique of the Modi government, the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), one of world renowned economist Prof Kaushik Basu, who is Professor of Economics and Carl Marks Professor of International Studies at Cornell University, has told students at the IIM-A’s 54th Annual Convocation on March 16, 2019 that they have a “special responsibility” on their shoulders, “the responsibility to reject narrow sectarianism, uphold scientific thinking, openness to new ideas, and freedom of speech.”

Gujarat model? Industrial effluents "invade" borewells, discharge coloured water in farms

By Rajiv Shah
In a major embarrassment for Gujarat model, of the 21 samples taken by officials of the state government's environmental watchdog Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) in two villages of Vadodara district and analyzed by its laboratory in Gandhinagar, the state capital, to find out pollution level in groundwater, 16 were assessed as highly contaminated – these were, in fact, found to be discharging reddish, brownish, reddish, or yellowish water.

Refugees as criminals? US govt report blames Amit Shah for calling Bangladeshis termites

Counterview Desk
The chapter “Freedom of Movement” of the US State Department’s “India 2018 Human Rights Report”, released recently, has criticized BJP chief Amit Shah for terming alleged Bangladeshis who may be in Assam as “termites”, because their names were struck down from the list of National Register of Citizens, under preparation in the state.
Pointing out that four million residents were excluded from Assam’s final draft list, leading to “uncertainty over the status of these individuals, many of whose families had lived in the state for several generations”, the report regrets, the Indian law does not even contain the term “refugee,” treating refugees like Rohingiyas as “any other foreigners.”
“Undocumented physical presence in the country is a criminal offense. Persons without documentation were vulnerable to forced returns and abuse”, the report says.
Text of the Freedom of Movement chapter: The law provides for freedom of internal movement, foreign travel, emigration, a…

Mental health: India's 95% patients "deprived" of medical care, treatment gap 70%

By Moin Qazi*
Among the many challenges India faces, the most underappreciated is the ongoing mental health crisis. Mental illness is actually India’s ticking bomb. An estimated 56 million Indians suffer from depression, and 38 million from anxiety disorders. For those who suffer from mental illness, life can seem like a terrible prison from which there is no hope of escape; they are left forlorn and abandoned, stigmatized, shunned and misunderstood.

Congress would win just 9 of 26 Lok Sabha seats: Gujarat Assembly segment-wise analysis

By Rajiv Shah
Even as the Congress plans its first working committee meet in Gujarat on February 28 after an almost 58 year gap, there is reason to wonder what is in store for India’s grand old party in a state which has been long been a BJP bastion – in fact ever since mid-1990s. Ahead of the then assembly polls in late 2012, talking with me, a senior Gujarat Congress leader, currently Rajya Sabha MP, frankly said he saw no reason why Congress would win.

"Pro-corporate" Supreme Court order on FRA would further marginalize Adivasis

By VS Roy David, JP Raju*
For millions of Adivasis and other traditional forest dwellers February 13, 2019 will go down in history as the day of apocalypse. This is like the proverbial Black Friday where millions of most marginalized people of India were ordered by malicious anti-people draconian Supreme Court order depriving them the life and livelihood by evicting them from their habitats.

Financial inclusion? Not micro-loans; India's poor "need" investment in health, education

By Moin Qazi*
India has grown into a global powerhouse. Its economy is soaring but the picture on the ground is still quite arid. The green shoots that you see are only a patch of its landscape. Most Indians are hapless victims of inequity. India is one country where intense poverty abounds in the shadow of immense wealth.

Counterview

Search This Blog