The Financial Times reports, “India is moving towards commissioning its first new nuclear power plant since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, despite fierce protests from local villagers deeply opposed to new nuclear reactors operating in their vicinity. Thousands of villagers clashed with police on the beach in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, as authorities prepared to begin loading radioactive fuel into the $3.5bn Kudankulam nuclear power plant… The protesters, who forced the temporary suspension of work on the reactor, last year, reached within half a kilometre of the nuclear installation, before police used teargas shells to disperse them. …India is looking to nuclear power to help it meet its huge demand for electricity (and that) has attracted the attention of companies including General Electric, Westinghouse, Bechtel, France’s Areva, Russia’s Rosatom, and Japan’s Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi.”
Blue Planet Project organizer Madhuresh Kumar shared this photograph and notes, “Protest at Tamilnadu House in support of Koodankulam protesters in TN opposing police action against them.”
