-The Hindu   The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) has built into its design a multi-layered safety mechanism along with additional protocols to safeguard against systemic or human error at the 2000-MW station, nuclear experts said on Sunday. The incorporation of broad-ranging safety features makes the plant completely safe and insulated from a set of worst-case radiation risk scenarios, including a Chernobyl-type calamity or a Fukushima-like disaster set off by a tsunami, scientists...

The West Bengal government confirmed cases of avian flu in two villages under the Tehatta 1 block of the State's Nadia district on Tuesday and ordered the culling of all poultry birds within a radius of 3 km of the villages. The government has also ordered the immediate destruction of eggs and feed material within the affected radius to control the spread of the disease. According to a senior official of the...

The past couple of months have seen a renewed attack on the National Advisory Council (NAC). The NAC has been decried as an unconstitutional, undemocratic, “super-cabinet” where unaccountable “jholawalas” hatch harebrained schemes guaranteed to run the government aground. Another line of criticism has focused on the process of the formation of the NAC, its space within the Indian Constitution, and its capacity to influence policy. The two criticisms merge with...

A transparent assessment of the costs and risks associated with India's ambitious nuclear plans must be made before any ground is broken at Jaitapur or elsewhere. You really have to hand it to the nuclear industry. In any other sphere of the economy, a major industrial disaster is likely to have adverse, long-term financial consequences for the company or companies whose product or activity was involved in the accident, regardless of...

The new bribery revelations, a rigged process to import reactors and safety-related concerns must lead to the long-blocked scrutiny of the nuclear deal by Parliament. The world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl raises troubling questions about India's plans for a huge expansion of its nuclear power programme through reactor imports. Given its low per-capita energy consumption, India must generate far more electricity to economically advance. So it needs more nuclear-generated power....