Thursday, September 15, 2011

[ZESTCaste] After caste, south Tamil Nadu on the boil over nuclear power

 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/after-caste-south-tamil-nadu-on-the-boil-over-nuclear-power/articleshow/9982698.cms

14 Sep, 2011, 07.37PM IST, Joe A Scaria,
After caste, south Tamil Nadu on the boil over nuclear power

CHENNAI: On Sunday, seven lives were lost in Paramakudi in south Tamil
Nadu's Ramanathapuram district when a gathering to pay homage to Dalit
leader Immanuel Sekaran turned violent, triggering police firing. Just
as the last of the victims are being cremated, three other districts
in south Tamil Nadu are up in revolt, demanding closure of the nuclear
power plant at Kudankulam in Tirunelveli district.

Once a barren landscape, Kudankulam village is on the verge of being
the latest nuclear power location on the world map, but just weeks
away from the commissioning of the first of its two1,000 mw nuclear
reactors, villagers in Kanyakumari, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli
districts are massing to demand that the Rs 13,000-crore,
ready-to-commission plant be scrapped.

It doesn't seem to matter to protestors that Tamil Nadu is starving
for power, or the fact that another nuclear power station in the state
at Kalpakkam has had a smooth run for over 25 years, as the protests
are reaching a crescendo just when finishing touches for the
Indo-Russian plant's commissioning are under way.

"There is no middle path. We want the plant to be shut down. What we
are demanding is that the lives of people should be the first
priority", Tuticorin bishop Ivan Ambrose, who participated in the
protests today at the Idinthakarai village adjacent to where the power
plant is located, told ET.

The Catholic Church and the Church of South India have joined the
Hindu and Muslim communities in the protest fast being undertaken by
127 people over the past four days, giving a new turn to the protest.
Religious leaders who have formally pledged their support to the
protest include Kottar bishop Peter Remigus, Palayamkottai bishop Jude
Paulraj, Tuticorin Nazareth bishop Jebachandran, CSI bishop
Christudas, Swami Balaprajapathi and Mohammed Elias.

"This has nothing to do with the Catholic Church in particular. We are
supporting the cause in our individual capacities. We see this as a
fight between good and evil", said bishop Ambrose, demanding that the
Indian government also take a line like the Germans, to steer clear of
nuclear power in the interest of people's safety.

SP Udayakumar, co-ordinator of the People's Movement against Nuclear
Power, said the organisation's demand was to have a resolution passed
in the Tamil Nadu assembly against commissioning the plant. He said
the project had given false hopes of thousands of jobs, while the
reality was different. "When the plant was under construction, there
were many north Indian labourers, to whom local people rented out
houses or rooms, but now even that income has stopped", says
Udayakumar.

Experts say that a plant as sophisticated as the one at Kudankulam
typically does not employ people in the hundreds, and that the
Kudankulam unit's employee strength is in the region of 1,000.

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