Fukushima had its first victim in distant shores, Kudankulam in South Tamil Nadu. The four people who have so far died at the plant have not been victims of radiation. Not even Japan has proposed to close any of its functioning reactors nor decided to forsake the nuclear option for power generation!
It is in fact likely that Japan builds a new plant with better safety features at the same location!
There are 441 working nuclear reactors deployed for power generation the world over. China has the largest number of 12 in advanced stages of completion with another 18 in the pipeline! Except for Germany, nobody has talked of closing down or abandoning nuclear power. France has about 70% of power sourced from nuclear facilities.
The nuclear scientist who came on the Times Now TV talk show could not hide his exasperation.
He was arraigned in front of Sunita Narain of pepsi fame and another voluble professional activist
who was trying to draw parallel to Bhopal Gas Tragedy!. The scientist banged his hands on his
forehead, a gesture that you seldom see on TV. The scientist , obviously , did not want to go beyond discussing the Environmental Impact Report for Kundakulam and was open to question on its basis. None of the other participants had even bothered to read it.
Down in Kudankulam, The 'knowledgeable' and 'well-informed' villagers of South Tamil Nadu ( as one worn-out leftist ex-editor put it) went on a fast egged by assorted groups of professional dissenters and pamphleteers , not to speak of obstructionists-par-excellence from the Gods own Country next door.
All and sundry got their axe to grind in the name of nuclear safety. The pastors of the local church saw in it an opportunity to increase their flock. One small time pro-LTTE Dalit leader advised the Centre not to massacre Tamils the way they got it done in Srilanka ! Another otherwise sober author and literateur said that just like industrial and urban waste was shipped to India some time back, this nuclear reactor is a gift of waste from the western world! Another challenged if Man Mohan Singh and Rahul Gandhi would come to live in the vicinity of the power plant! One tamil essayist writing for the DNA saw in it the budding activism of green politics.
As such inane talk worked up the protests to a cresendo , we could see opportunistic hypocrisy in full display by both Jayalalitha / Karunanidhi and the many letter-pad parties in Tamil Nadu. The leftists joined the fray late as unfortunately the reactors were supplied by Russia not USA or the West!
After seeming to take the right path of convicing the agitationists on the safety provisions, Jayalalitha took a U-turn and accused the Centre of turning a deaf ear to the cries of the people!
So much for the famous guts of the iron lady-cum-revolutionary leader ( puratchi talaivi) !
Finally about 1000 MW of power for TN and another 1000 MW for other Southern States has been frittered away after having spent thousands of crores on it. Can you agree to go ahead to marry off your daughter after coming to know that the groom is HIV+ even though you have spent thousands on the marriage preparations, thus went the rhetoric!
Scientists may be able to develop Nuclear Reactors fail-proof , but they would never be able to make them idiot-proof.
Resources :
http://puthu.thinnai.com/?p=1806 ( to know the global statistics on nuclear power)
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