With frightening ease the establishment has managed to confine the Kudankulam discourse to a local problem that concerns only a few illiterate villagers who have some very personal and trivial concerns. Spiced up a bit by 'foreign' funded NGOs, out to divert us from our shot at greatness and superpowerdom.
Civil society at large, the 'professional' intelligentsia as also the scientific community have been lulled into acceptance of a totally fake assurance that safety is not an issue.
Over the last few years public pronouncements have been of the type where the prime minister says he has full faith in the nuclear scientists of the country. This is followed a few days later by some employee of the Department of Atomic Energy, which controls all activities nuclear, saying he has full faith in the prime minister.
Not to be outdone Abdul Kalam pipes up shortly thereafter to the effect that he has full faith in the prime minister and the nuclear scientists of India, and that he has satisfied himself that all available state-of-the-art safeguards have been built into our nuclear power plants.
Therein lies the rub. State-of-the-art isn't good enough.
As we lathi-charge and fire tear-gas at the Kudankulam villagers, another voice opened up yesterday. In a prime editorial-page piece in the Hindu titled "The Real Questions", one Rahul Siddharthan, employed by a DAE funded outfit, came out strongly against scaremongering and suggesting that 'an independent safety regulator" is needed to reassure misguided, ignorant and ill-informed people.
Siddharthan does not present any personal credentials to show that he knows whereof he speaks. He cites instead an eminent authority on the subject, one George Monbiot, a zoologist, author and journalist. Said George has converted recently from 'neutral' to 'pro-nuclear power' because, hold your breath, no one died as a consequence of the Fukushima disaster.
The fact that radiation fallout forced the evacuation of about 160,000 people surrounding the plant and left about 132 square kilometers as a no-go zone, some of it uninhabitable for decades does not merit mention.
As I finished reading this mischievous work designed to misinform and obfuscate, Sajal Lahiri, the noted International Trade economist and Japophile, posted a BBC news report that the Japanese have decided to totally phase out nuclear power.
Do we know something they don't or is it vice versa? If we do, we should capitalise on that by selling that knowledge to Germany and Japan.
Snippet: The other expert Rahul Siddharthan cites is Randall Munroe, the creator of the web comic XKCD.
Previous: Nuclear Business Opportunity
First: The Nuclear Mess
Civil society at large, the 'professional' intelligentsia as also the scientific community have been lulled into acceptance of a totally fake assurance that safety is not an issue.
Over the last few years public pronouncements have been of the type where the prime minister says he has full faith in the nuclear scientists of the country. This is followed a few days later by some employee of the Department of Atomic Energy, which controls all activities nuclear, saying he has full faith in the prime minister.
Not to be outdone Abdul Kalam pipes up shortly thereafter to the effect that he has full faith in the prime minister and the nuclear scientists of India, and that he has satisfied himself that all available state-of-the-art safeguards have been built into our nuclear power plants.
Therein lies the rub. State-of-the-art isn't good enough.
As we lathi-charge and fire tear-gas at the Kudankulam villagers, another voice opened up yesterday. In a prime editorial-page piece in the Hindu titled "The Real Questions", one Rahul Siddharthan, employed by a DAE funded outfit, came out strongly against scaremongering and suggesting that 'an independent safety regulator" is needed to reassure misguided, ignorant and ill-informed people.
Siddharthan does not present any personal credentials to show that he knows whereof he speaks. He cites instead an eminent authority on the subject, one George Monbiot, a zoologist, author and journalist. Said George has converted recently from 'neutral' to 'pro-nuclear power' because, hold your breath, no one died as a consequence of the Fukushima disaster.
The fact that radiation fallout forced the evacuation of about 160,000 people surrounding the plant and left about 132 square kilometers as a no-go zone, some of it uninhabitable for decades does not merit mention.
As I finished reading this mischievous work designed to misinform and obfuscate, Sajal Lahiri, the noted International Trade economist and Japophile, posted a BBC news report that the Japanese have decided to totally phase out nuclear power.
Do we know something they don't or is it vice versa? If we do, we should capitalise on that by selling that knowledge to Germany and Japan.
Snippet: The other expert Rahul Siddharthan cites is Randall Munroe, the creator of the web comic XKCD.
Previous: Nuclear Business Opportunity
First: The Nuclear Mess
There used to be an American sitcom called Father knows best.
ReplyDeleteTapen
Our unit is 1000,000. Any number below that is rounded to zero. Zero is peace. We are peace loving nation of only 12 million. Only one die out of hunger and malnutrition. We are sparse. We do not expect even one to die at Kandakulam.
ReplyDeleteYou have very effectively exposed the mischievous investigative journalism meant to misinform and obfuscate. A general question of principle it raises is that minorities have rights, including those living in a particular area, be they only a miniscule percentage of the population of the country. Citizens cannot become "collateral damage" in the process of pursuing "national interest". I presume this is what Kankan also means ... that any number with less than 6 zeros is only a rounding-off error!
ReplyDeleteBy the way, the correct name is Kudankulam (=kudam + kulam, with the combination turning the 'mk' sound to an 'nk' sound)
Thank you, Ravi.
DeleteEnjoyed reading the piece. The secretive nature of the nuclear industry (and the establishment; Abdul Kalam etc. are a part of it) does very little to reassure people like me. What astonished me is attempts by the media to portray cynics as nutters.
ReplyDelete