The Fukushima disaster has prompted calls to review legislation passed by the Indian parliament in August 2010 that capped compensation payable, in the event of a nuclear accident, at 320 million U.S. dollars. "Fukushima showed what the potential damage from an accident could be," M.V. Ramana, physicist and well-known commentator on nuclear energy safety issues, told IPS. "The economic damages [at Fukushima] must have certainly exceeded the compensation allowed in the nuclear...

Outsiders barred from entering The Ratnagiri district administration, which has clamped prohibitory orders in the Jaitapur nuclear power project area, is preventing outsiders from entering the area even for public meetings, according to social activist Gopal Dukhande. Expressing solidarity He said that at a meeting to express solidarity with the people of Japan in Mithgavane village on March 25, the police were present in large numbers. “They harassed me and prevented me from entering...

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....

Anti-nuclear campaigners in India see the earthquake that hit Japan last week, which threatens the meltdown of the Fukushima atomic power facility there, as a wakeup call for this country’s ambitious nuclear power programme. When India completed a nuclear power cooperation deal with the United States in October 2008, it threw open a 270 billion U.S. dollar market for nuclear reactors. Now members of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group are queuing...

The Sanjha Manch, a joint forum of people’s organisations, organised a candlelight march in protest against the proposed Gorakhpur Atomic Power Project here last evening. Members of the Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, which is agitating against the acquisition of 1,313 acres of agriculture land for the proposed nuclear plant and activists of the Sanjha Manch began their candlelight march from Laal Batti Chowk and after passing through DSP Road, the procession reached...