South Asia Citizens Web

Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) is now forty years old. It is rated among the worst functioning reactors of the world. Situated on the Arabian Sea, it was originally far away from populated areas of Karachi, but now many residential schemes have moved close to it. The reactors at Chashma are relatively new. The site is on the bank of River Indus, situated between Indus and Chashma-Jehlum Link Canal. The reactor site is known to be on top of a series of tectonic plates. Nuclear power is inherently unsafe and perilous. The mantra of solving our energy needs through nuclear power is not acceptable any more after the Fukushima event. It is in our interest to stop the strong nuclear lobby from imposing itself upon our safety and security.

Tom Heinemann, the director of the documentary broadcast on Norwegian television which accused Muhammad Yunus of transferring aid money out of the Grameen Bank and using some of it to fund a telecom company, appears on the cusp of securing a big scalp.

As the religious right wing goes from strength to strength in Pakistan, it is increasingly urgent that we understand how the threat it poses to women is largely accepted, rather than meeting with recrimination or resistance.

The colossal hubris, ignorance and smugness of India’s nuclear czars take one’s breath away. The day Japan’s crisis took a decisive turn for the worse, with an explosion in a third Fukushima reactor and fresh radiation leaks, Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) secretary Sreekumar Banerjee declared that the nuclear crisis “was purely a chemical reaction and not a nuclear emergency as described by some section(s) of media”. Nuclear Power Corporation chairman S.K. Jain went one better: “There is no nuclear accident or incident. It is a well-planned emergency preparedness programme which the nuclear operators...are carrying out to contain the residual heat after...an automatic shutdown”.

Photos by Harsh Kapoor from the anti nuclear vigil held on 18 March 2011, at India Gate, New Delhi. There were some 150 people from various citizens groups, who came to express their solidarity with the victims of the Japaneses Nuclear disaster and to also express their deep concern at the dysmal safety record of India’s Nuclear energy programme which lacks transparency and independent oversight.