Sonali is a former researcher with the National Human Rights Commission, India and a PhD research scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. Her research is focused on the people's movement in India against nuclear energy.
Sonali is a former researcher with the National Human Rights Commission, India and a PhD research scholar at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. Her research is focused on the people's movement in India against nuclear energy.
The plan for the proposed extension of the Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant has met with fierce opposition from local resident communities, a majority of whom, instead of attending the public hearing, decided to register their opposition by boycotting it and carried out a protest march from Mallapur to the Kaiga housing complex, where the public hearing was scheduled to be held.
While the Rafale fighter jet deal will entail huge financial losses for the country, the agreement for the world’s largest nuclear power project at Jaitapur in an ecologically diverse and fragile region like Konkan, along with attendant concerns of the safety of EPRs, an unsteady French nuclear industry and its inexperienced Indian counterparts, will pose serious challenges to the environment, biodiversity, health and livelihoods of lakhs of people in and around the region.
The Koodankulam anti-nuclear movement intensified following the catastrophic Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident in Japan in 2011. The accident, coupled with Tamil Nadu’s memory of the devastating Tsunami of 2004, and state apathy to the people’s concerns, all played a role in invigorating the agitation, which was met with unprecedented repression by the State.
