Getting it right onKudankulam
New Delhi's handling of the protests at Kudankulam marks some improvement over the ham-handed way in which popular concerns over the Jaitapur nuclear power project in Maharashtra were dealt with. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa has shown the way with her deft handling of the protests by the local population, shifting from appeals to support the project to articulating the concerns of the people of the project area and throwing the ball into the centre's court. The central government needs to understand that routine prime ministerial assurances will not work in the post-Fukushima era. It must come up with a radically different approach, in form and substance, to the question of nuclear safety — if it has to safeguard the future of the Kudankulam project and other civilian nuclear ventures. The protagonists of nuclear power are on a reasonably good wicket at Kudankulam. The VVER-1000 reactors have been in operation across the world at a number of loc...