Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Democracy, Asoka and Koodankulam...

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In the state where I live, there is another story—of a nuclear power plant, the fragile eco-system of the sea and the coast and many unanswered questions. It is not the only contemporary story where people want to understand why their lives are being changed irrevocably and, what the cost-benefit calculus around these decisions (to which they were not party) has been and where they want a say in what finally transpires. It is also not the only story in which their questions have been met with silence, their persistence read as sedition and their campaign met with force.

Protests against the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant are not new. The questions are actually quite simple and relate to safety, the ecological consequences of the location and working of the plant and the impact on people’s lives, livelihood and health. Simple questions but very hard to answer, it seems, given that the government has been so reluctant to share reports and documentation.

But when you read environmental activist, Anitha S’ collection of conversations with the women and children of Idinthakarai, NO: Echoes from Koodankulam, their clarity is startling. They ask questions about chemical radiation. They ask questions about the temperature of the water that will be discharged as waste from the reactor. They ask about the impact on fisheries. They point to Fukushima and ask how they can be sure it will not happen. They also want to understand what they are doing that the state reads and treats as seditious. After all, India is supposed to be a democratic state. Full story...

Related posts:
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  2. Where the mind is full of fear: the anti-nuclear protests in Kudankulam...
  3. Nuclear resistance escalates in South India's Koodankulam...
  4. Mutant butterflies a result of Fukushima nuclear disaster...
  5. Japan firm 'told workers to lie' about Fukushima radiation dose...

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