December 30, 10 am to 1 pm
The Press Club, Statue, Thiruvanthapuram,
Nuclear power generation has in recent years provoked a vigorous public debate and growing popular opposition the world over because of its hazards, potential for catastrophic accidents, exorbitant and rising costs, overcentralised nature, and the danger of proliferation of mass-destruction weapons.
The debate has acquired great momentum after the Fukushima disaster of March 2011 in Japan, which has ignited growing worldwide grass-roots opposition to nuclear power. This impelled many countries to phase out nuclear power altogether and precipitated the worst-ever crisis in the global nuclear industry, which has been in decline for over two decades.
Ignoring this, India however is pushing ahead with nuclear power expansion. But India too has witnessed rising opposition to nuclear power projects which are being imposed on local populations against their will at more than half-a-dozen sites, both coastal and inland. This strong, informed, peaceful opposition has been sustained by people’s legitimate concerns about the safety of atomic power and radiation hazards, which the authorities have failed to address.
This is starkly evident in Koodankulam in Southern Tamil Nadu, close to Kerala, but also in Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Fatehabad in Haryana, Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh, Mithi-Virdi in Gujarat and Haripur in West Bengal, among other places. Solidarity campaigns have sprung up all over the country in support of these mass-based anti-nuclear power movements.
To discuss the problems posed by nuclear power and the issues raised by these movements, a seminar is being organised by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), a broad alliance of more than 200 groups opposed to nuclear weapons and nuclear power, in collaboration with the Kerala Support Group for the Koodankulam Anti-Nuclear Struggle in Thiruvanthapuram on December 30. The seminar is expected to be attended by numerous experts, activists and concerned citizens from all over India.
The seminar will be addressed by
Com VS Achuthanandan, former Chief Minister of Kerala
Dr Ninan Koshy, international affairs analyst and political commentator, Thiruvanthapuram
Prof RVG Menon, Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad and scholar-activist, Thiruvanthapuram
Dr Suvrat Raju, physicist, International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Bangalore, and
Praful Bidwai, columnist and National Coordination Committee member, CNDP, New Delhi
Former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral L Ramdas will chair the seminar.