Nuclear energy still has a role in India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said as he appeared to blame some US-based NGOs for difficulties at the Kudankulam nuclear plant.

The safety of people and environment has always been the priority of the nuclear industry, stressed M. Kashinath Balaji, Director of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, here on Thursday.

He was inaugurating an interactive session, ‘National summit on nuclear safety' organised in connection with Conjura-12, the annual technical and cultural festival of the TKM College of Engineering. “The global nuclear industry, with 430 reactors operating, has clocked a cumulative experience of 14,000 reactor years of safe operation. Indian reactors have clocked 350 reactor-years,” he said.

Collector visits the completed revetment wall and ramp at Punavasal village

Flood prevention works taken up along the Kollidam river in Thanjavur district by the Public Works Department (PWD) are nearing completion. The works were started in October 2010. Out of the total works taken up at a cost of Rs. 106.22 crore, works to the tune of Rs. 93.34 crore have been finished so far. The rest will be completed before the end of March.

The Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) can demand water charges from all owners/occupants of an apartment even though the apartment has only a common sump and no individu

Almost a year after the city's Climate Action Plan was prepared, the Chennai Corporation will finally adopt it in its council meeting next month.

The Plan, if approved by the State government, will provide a comprehensive prevention and action plan for the city to cope with disasters associated with climate change.In a recent meeting of senior officials with the team of experts which developed the plan, experts stressed the need for prompt adoption and implementation.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has criticised non-governmental organisations that receive support from abroad for stalling the use of genetic engineering in agriculture and leading protests against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu.

In an interview published in the latest issue of journal Science, Dr. Singh pointed to the potential of biotechnology, saying “in due course of time we must make use of genetic engineering technologies to increase the productivity of our agriculture.”

The District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), Vellore has adopted a cluster approach in undertaking various works under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) in order to enable more villagers to get employment, according to N. Srinivasan, Project Officer of the DRDA.

Talking to newspersons at the Alangulam irrigation tank in Melappulam village panchayat in Arcot panchayat union where the work of deepening of the tank under MGNREGS was under progress on Wednesday, Mr. Srinivasan said that if there are more than 200 workers in a village panchayat, a new cluster would be started, comprising workers from a group of habitations. Under this approach,

Three men who spearheaded the movement to start mass vaccinationof children

At the Polio Summit in New Delhi this weekend, Rotarians would be celebrating the country's first polio-free year. They form the backbone of a movement that has resulted in polio immunisation programme becoming a routine in every State.

‘It ran through undeveloped areas; was financially unviable'

The State government has decided to drop one of the four monorail lines that were supposed to be built in the city. While originally an ambitious 111-km long Phase-I network was proposed to be constructed the revised target means the monorail grid would be only 57-km.

Farmers optimism on the state government giving a new lease to the Palar river has come a cropper with media reports suggesting that the Karnataka Government plans to block the flow of water to the Pennaiyar River altogether. Farmers here were optimistic that the state government would take up with the Union Ministry of Water Resources, the proposal to divert the excess flow of water from the Thenpennaiyar River below Krishnagiri reservoir to the water-starved Palar basin through a Pennaiyar-Palar link project.