India should rethink about the civil nuclear programs

I don't understand as to why our learned prime minister is in a complete denial mode to accept the growing concerns worldwide, about the safety of nuclear power plants, following the catastrophic consequences in Sendai, Japan. It seems that either our prime minister pretends to overlook the criticisms of anti-nuclear communities for engaging himself in a pro-nuclear lobby and throwing assurances that our nuclear plants have already passed through earthquakes and tsunami successfully in 2002 and 2004, and nothing has proved wrong to the safety measures we have in place, or he is under tremendous pressure from the foreign countries, especially from the US and France, to keep the promises or maybe a barter deal he made during Obama's visit to India. Our prime minister and his team are in a hurry to venture into multiple nuclear plants in different regions of our country, and Jaitapur is also one of the sites that has still been lingering over a decade. The alacrity in decisions is an indicative of the fact that something is going on behind the scenes. And the bigger truth will only emerge when a hot political debate with storm the parliament in the next few months.

Though everyone knows that nuclear power generation is the next big step for all nations to control the global climatic change, but one specific aspect of this radical drive is not clear here that why the lobby for global climatic change is often driven by western communities where they deliberately increase the carbon footprints and put disproportionate pressures on the developing countries to bear the brunt of their mistakes. Or it could be far different from the common public knowledge that there lies a sinister design of western business lobby in global political pond to realize their business mandates from the developing countries when the first world market is fast becoming saturate or they face resistance from various environmental activist groups in their homeland. Either way the facts remain that on the backdrop of global climate change lies a more dangerous vested interest of western multinational companies to pop up various pressure groups in different power circles to marginalize the larger truth, and the proposition could be such that a nuclear holocaust which is more imminent in the coming times due to the various natural calamities or human error is less important to the growing climate change that has already engulfed our atmosphere.

But again there are a number of ways to negate the ill effects of global climate change other than leveraging the nuclear power generation programs. The alternative renewable sources of energy such as wind mill, solar plants, tidal power plants, mini to small hydroelectric power generations setups are widely used for long by various nations and most of them are in the first world countries. In stead, the same countries vouch for a technology which is predominantly anti-environment and anti-nature and frequently has proved disastrous to the entire ecosystem of this planet. The last century's history is just a silent reminder of the magnitude of loss borne by mankind due to a number of nuclear disasters that has particularly occurred in those developed countries. And the recent disaster in Japan is no new one.

As most developed countries including US, Germany, France, China, and Japan are seriously thinking about the freezing their current program of expansions in nuclear power plants, it is a sad part for Indian leadership to blindly ignoring not only the lethal consequences of a nuclear crisis, but also the most evocative critiques of western communities. It seems the underlying objectives behind this motion are more hush-hush than it seems otherwise. The citizens of India should be cognizant of the hidden agenda that this government is trying to consummate.

Heading for a disaster?

Why India is so rigid about pursuing its wildest dream to enter into a sizable civil nuclear program at a time when the most developed countries are in state of quandary by noticing the imminent consequences of Japan's worst nuclear disaster in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake followed by a widely destructive tsunami? Why India is in a hurry to clear all new nuclear power plant projects, even without considering the dire consequences that the world super powers have already been haunted, be it Chernobyl, Pripyat, or now the Fukushima? Why the proposed Jaitapur nuclear power plant, which was in a dark chamber for many years due to safety considerations, has got the environmental clearance from the Ministry of Environment while the same ministry did play foul with a large-scale steel plant, which of course doesn't have a comparable risk index vis-a-vis a mega nuclear power plant, in Orissa? There are many uncomfortable questions though which would raise doubts about the intention of this Government at the Centre, for a sustainable development in India.

The party in power in different regimes has shown sheer disregards to humanitarian values and public safety standards whenever it inks large industrial deals with foreign companies. The people of India have already experienced the apathy of government in the Union Carbide case. Even after 27 years of that industrial disaster, which killed thousands of innocent people and crippled many more thousands for generations, the culprits are roving free and the victims are still waiting for the justice. When most politicians and bureaucrats escape the public anger by simply toning it down to the most unfortunate event, the sufferers take the pain for go. And now that this government has again in a hush-hush deal with US and France companies for nuclear power plants, the pressure from international forums, often driven by US, is mounting high, which is clear from the hotfoot of administration.

Many nuclear scientists though opine that India's nuclear plants have the highest safety standards and they have endured the fury of 2004 tsunami and Latur earthquake and nothing has happened, the larger point of the debate is that whatever precautions may be taken to ensure the safety of these plants, if anything goes wrong, the consequences will be disastrous. This is the high time for Indian leadership to reconsider the options available before heading for another Chernobyl like situation.