-The New York Times ASHULIA, BANGLADESH: The fire alarm shattered the monotony of the Tazreen Fashions factory. Hundreds of seamstresses looked up from their machines, startled. On the third floor, Shima Akhter Pakhi had been stitching hoods onto fleece jackets. Now she ran to a staircase. But two managers were blocking the way. Ignore the alarm, they ordered. It was just a test. Back to work. A few women laughed nervously. Ms....
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From plastic portable loos to Sanitary Bonds, India needs a latrine policy-V Raghunathan
-The Economic Times After Mahatma Gandhi, Jairam Ramesh is the only national leader to be genuinely concerned that 65 years after Independence, some 600 million Indians in the 21st century continue to use open skies as their latrines. While Lee Kuan Yew continues to exhort Singaporeans to have cleaner loos, our ministry of railways thinks depositing human excreta all along the country's length and breadth, including deep into the cities -...
More »Kudankulam on shaky legal ground-D Nagasaila and V Suresh
-The Hindu Violations of Coastal Regulation Zone and Environmental Impact Assessment notifications make official claims questionable The debate over nuclear energy will go on, but the issue with the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) is one of the several illegalities on which it is founded. In 1988, India inked the Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant deal with the former Soviet Union. Two key elements in it were: the highly dangerous and toxic “Spent Nuclear...
More »Nuclear safety before vendor interests-MV Ramana and Suvrat Raju
-The Hindu The question that must be asked, is whether India is willing to compromise on its laws and the safety and rights of its citizens to protect the business interests of reactor suppliers In 2010, under pressure from multinational nuclear suppliers, the Manmohan Singh government pushed through a law to protect them from the consequences of a nuclear accident. The law makes it impossible for victims to sue the supplier, even...
More »Flunking Atomic Audits-MV Ramana
-Economic and Political Weekly The recent Comptroller and Auditor General's report on the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board and, more broadly, on nuclear safety regulation has highlighted many serious organisational and operational flaws. The report follows on a series of earlier CAG reports that documented cost and time overruns and poor performance at a number of nuclear facilities in the country. On the whole, the CAG reports offer a powerful indictment of...
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