A World Health Organisation agency evaluates electromagnetic radiation from mobile phones for carcinogenicity. THERE has been a dramatic increase in the use of the mobile phone worldwide since its introduction in the mid-1980s. According to the estimate of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), currently there are about five billion mobile phone subscribers globally. In the past decade or so, there has been growing concern about the possibility of adverse health effects,...

-The Hindu   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday directed the Department of Atomic Energy and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to upgrade safety measures at the nuclear facilities in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis. At a special meeting to review the country's disaster preparedness in the light of the disasters the tsunami caused in Japan in March, Dr. Singh, who is also Chairman of the National Disaster Management...

-PTI   Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday directed upgradation of safety measures at the country's nuclear facilities to match the global standards as he reviewed the disaster preparedness in the wake of recent radiation scare in Japan. At a special meeting here, he asked the authorities concerned to look 'beyond design basis accident' while putting in place the safety measures at the nuclear installations. Singh took stock of the safety measures being...

-The Hindu   The former Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court, A.P. Shah, on Friday criticised the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB), the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) for their “half-hearted approach” to the ongoing public hearing on the safety, viability and cost efficiency of nuclear energy. Mr. Shah is heading a ‘People's Tribunal' along with former Justice S.D. Pandit, which is conducting...

While, the threats of a nuclear fall-out, borne out of a tragedy that happened in the Fakushima Nuke Plant in Japan, started a debate about the positives and negatives of nuclear energy. The media completely ignored the protests and the cries that were being carried out (in fact, for the last 10 to 15 years) in Northern Kerala as well as Southern Karnataka to ban the Pesticide Endosulfan. Perhaps, after the...