The battle to stop Koodankulam

Green light for Koodankulam could still be red light for nuclear industry

"The Supreme Court decision to clear the decks for the commissioning of the controversial 1000 MW nuclear powerplant at Kudankulam in Tamil Nadu is certainly a set back for the anti-nuclear agitators; but ironically it will be a bigger setback for the Indian nuclear establishment because it will now be forced to deliver," writes G Pramod Kumar in the Huffington Post. Read the complete article. On May 6th, the Indian Supreme Court approved the establishment of the Koodankulam plant, located in Tamil Nadu, and declared that all safety standards have been met. A batch of petitions had been filed by anti-nuclear activists, challenging the project on the ground that safety measures recommended by an expert body had not been put in place.

Continued safety problems at Koodankulam

P.K. Sundaram, Research Consultant with the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), India, continues to furnish us with updates about the problematic nuclear site which faces mass opposition that has been subjected to draconian oppression. Read his most recent article here.

Update on Koodankulam

Writes Dr. S. P. Udayakuma: "We have been fighting against the Koodankulam Nuclear power Project (KKNPP) since the late 1980s. This Russian project was shelved right after the Soviet Union’s collapse and taken up again in 1997. The Indian government and Russians have constructed two huge reactors of 1,000 MW each without any consent of or consultation with the local people. We have just obtained the outdated Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report after 23 years of long and hard struggle. The Indian nuclear authorities have not shared any basic information about the project with the public. They do not give complete and truthful answers for our questions on the ‘daily routine emissions’ from these reactors, the amount and management of nuclear waste, fresh water needs, impact of the coolant water on our sea and seafood, decommissioning costs and effects, Russian liability and so forth. We are deeply disturbed by all this." Pictured - students protesting the Koodankulam nuclear pwoer project.  Read more.

"A Nuclear Clash Could Starve the World"

Mushroom cloud rising above Hiroshima after U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, August 1945As described in an op-ed posted at CNN, "A Nuclear Clash Could Starve the World," Jayantha Dhanapala and Ira Helfand report on the findings of a new PSR/IPPNW report, NUCLEAR FAMINE: A BILLION PEOPLE AT RISK.

Among the findings: even a limited nuclear war, as between Indian and Pakistan, involving less than half of 1% of the world's nuclear arsenals, would cause climate disruption that could set off a global famine; 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs (see photo, left) exploded in a war between India and Pakistan would lead to the starvation of an estimated 1 billion people, one-sixth of the human race, over the following decade; each U.S. Trident nuclear submarine can destroy 100 cities and produce the global famine described in the study (the United States has 14 Tridents). 

Jayantha Dhanapala is a former ambassador to the United States from Sri Lanka, U.N. under-secretary general for disarmament and chairman of the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference. Ira Helfand is the past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and current North American vice president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).