Strongly favouring nuclear power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said there would be no compromise on safety of atomic plants and it would be harmful to close the additional source of energy.
Amid heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, Britain on Sunday said it would not be "wise" for Israel to launch pre-emptive military strikes on Iran's atomic installations as it would have "enormous downsides."
Batting for the Jaitapur Nuclear Power Plant, Atomic Energy Commission chief M R Srinivasan has said Maharashtra needs the new generation capacity to meet its industrial and agricultural demands and assured locals that effluents from the plant will not affect the ecology.
... and ONE man could be the reason for that, say scientists.
The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday set up a four-member expert panel, which includes former atomic energy commission chief M R Srinivasan, to submit a report on the fears and concerns of local people over the Koodankulam nuclear power project.
In this exclusive interview, Dr Srinivasan talks to Shobha Warrier about nuclear energy in general, the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in particular and India's energy needs.
The Bombay high court on Monday allowed three anti-nuclear activists -- two of them former judges -- to enter Maharashtra's coastal Ratnagiri district, where a proposed atomic power plant is facing opposition.
Amid concerns over the Koodankulam nuclear power project, the National Disaster Management Authority has said safety measures at all atomic plants in the country were in place but admitted earthquakes at these sites cannot be completely ruled out.
Search giant Google has released satellite images of facilities at two Iranian cities that the United Nations claims may be used to develop nuclear weapons.
Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik told rediff.com that Israel's recent threats to Iran over the country's plan to build nuclear arms doesn't scare Pakistan, who, some reports suggested, were moving their nuclear arms in an unsafe way, fearing Americans would take them away.
The final decision will depend on the confidence of the Israeli military and intelligence leadership that it can destroy Iran's retaliatory capability through a pre-emptive strike, says B Raman
Pakistan's secreted nuclear 'jewels' has hugely burdened the economy as billions of dollars of scarce resources were being expended on modernising and upgrading atomic warheads and delivery systems by the megalomaniacal and paranoid military, says Rahul Bedi
India was forced to go nuclear and develop ballistic missiles to strike a balance of power in the region as "big nations" around the country were armed with atomic weapons, former President A P J Abdul Kalam said on Thursday.
Parliament must insist that the government should direct its Department of Atomic Energy to immediately examine and make recommendations to the government on the structure of an independent surveillance and regulatory authority for the defence nuclear facilities, says Dr A Gopalakrishnan.
'When economic policies were attacked by people on his own side, he went ahead despite all the criticisms in the coalition, within the party and the Sangh Parivar.'
Pakistan, which used every "legal and illegal" means to go nuclear, shared its secret atomic technology and equipment with countries like Iran and Libya, says an Inter-Services Intelligence report, based on disgraced scientist A Q Khan's questioning, which was circulated among western intelligence agencies.
Albert Einstein's 1905 theory of relativity is one of the most fundamental pillars of physics - but now scientists say his conclusion that nothing can travel faster than light could be proven wrong.
The imported machine costs around Rs 3 crore (Rs 30 million) while the BARC-developed AMTS would cost Rs 50 lakhs (Rs 5 million).
The Intel Inside logo, which consumers have always seen on laptops and PCs, will now be seen on smartphones, too. In April, mobile vendor Lava International will launch its first smartphone in India based on the Intel processors, expected to be priced around Rs 25,000.
Russia on Tuesday said there is no point in keeping its scientists at protest-hit Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant site in Tamil Nadu after its commissioning remained stalled for months.
Voicing concern over growing nuclear stockpile in South Asia, Congress member of Parliament Mani Shankar Aiyar on Tuesday said that no other country is as threatened as India is by atomic weapons and prospect of these arsenal falling into the hands of terrorists.
Russia on Friday assured that India would continue to enjoy the waiver it received in 2008 from the Nuclear Suppliers Group's export ban and Moscow wants New Delhi's full participation in the 45-nation grouping that regulates global atomic commerce. Russia's assurance came after India objected to the new guidelines adopted in June by the NSG on the export of nuclear enrichment and reprocessing equipment.
Seeking to allay fears, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday told Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa that the Centre will give full regard to "safety, livelihood and security of the people" while implementing the Kundankulam Nuclear Power Project.
Minister of State in PMO V Narayanasamy said the 'cold run' of the power plant will begin in the presence of Atomic Energy Regulatory Commission officials within ten days time and the tests will go on for 15 days from then.
Japanese government on Monday blasted the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant for its "absolutely unacceptable" mistake of giving an extremely high radiation reading, as engineers battled to contain the country's worst atomic crisis.
Amid public resistance to nuclear power projects at Jaitapur and Koodankulam, the Department of Atomic Energy has said the work on both plants will be completed but their could be delay.
Noted nuclear scientist P K Iyengar, who played a key role in India's first atomic test in 1974 and pioneered experiments in cold fusion died in Mumbai on Wednesday afternoon after a brief illness. He was 80.
The 11-day-old fast by locals demanding the scrapping of the Koodankulam nuclear power project was called off on Wednesday after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa agreed for a cabinet resolution to request the Centre to halt the project.
Pakistan spread nuclear weapon technology around the globe in exchange for cash, political influence and help with its own atomic bomb programme, suggest documents obtained by a United States news channel.
The ASUS Zenfone 2 has a hard plastic chassis with a matte finish that makes it look attractive.
Proponent of a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, a top Israeli leader has warned the West that no country was immune to Tehran's missiles and that the range of these rockets covers most of Europe.
India's Civil Nuclear Liability Bill will not have an immediate adverse impact on Indo-Russian cooperation in atomic power generation, but Russian contractors would not like to see safety issues raise their project costs. Director for the Centre of Energy and Security Studies and Editor-in-Chief of the Nuclear Club magazine Anton Khlopkov said the legislation passed by the Indian Parliament "is raising concerns in Russia".
Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal claimed that India has been doing better than many other countries on the outcome ratio, which is the number of recoveries from coronavirus infection versus the number of deaths.
Though the United States and the United Kingdom did not inform India of a covert operation to stop Pakistan going nuclear, New Delhi had its own intelligence in 1978 to conclude that Islamabad was just two or three years away from making an atomic bomb, according to declassified documents.
Rediff.com takes a look at the revamped Cabinet of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh:
India on Monday signed a civil nuclear cooperation deal with South Korea, allowing a framework for Korean companies to participate in atomic power plant projects in the country.
Grappling with Japan's worst atomic crisis, workers at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on Wednesday kept removing highly toxic water from a reactor as a new test showed the radiation levels in nearby seawater had risen, amid protests by angry evacuees demanding compensation.
In the backdrop of nuclear radiation fears in Japan after a tsunami, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednessay discussed the need for reviewing safety mechanisms of atomic reactors of the two countries besides pushing for safety reviews of such facilities at international level.
Congratulating engineers and scientists for constructing the sophisticated complex in the coastal region here in Thane district of Maharashtra, Singh said the reprocessing plant was essential for the country's closed-fuel-cycle three-stage nuclear programme.
The government has finalised the much-awaited rules of implementation of the nuclear liability law, a move that could pave way for the expansion of the atomic power sector by procuring equipment from foreign suppliers. "A PMO committee has approved the rules of implementation of the civil nuclear liability law. We will notify the rules within a month," V Narayanasamy said. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage law was passed by Parliament last year.
