A 10-member Atomic Energy Regulatory Board team is camping at Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) site for inspecting the first of the 2 X 1,000 MWe reactors, which has been loaded with enriched uranium fuel assemblies and is ready for criticality.

The AERB team, which reached Anu Vijay Township, KKNPP employees’ residential colony, from Mumbai on Wednesday morning, went to the KKNPP site to start the inspection immediately.

The Supreme Court (SC) today asked the government what mechanism it will put in place to handle nuclear waste at the Kudankulam power plant once it becomes operational.

Makes clear that 17 safety measures are additional, not a condition precedent

Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati asserted in the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant was absolutely safe and all apprehensions on safety of the plant were completely baseless. Making this submission before a Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra, Mr. Vahanvati also made it clear that it was not a condition precedent that all the 17 safety measures to be implemented before the plant was put into operation.

Russia on Monday expressed its displeasure over the civil nuclear liability law that seeks to cover Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) 3 and 4 and problems faced by its telecom company Sistema saying that the rules of the game should not be changed mid-way.

Unit 1 of KKNPP is due to be commissioned soon, while Unit 2 is at an advanced stage and will be commissioned next year. Addressing a joint press conference after co-chairing the Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission meeting on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC), external affairs minister S.M. Krishna and Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin resolved to meet the desired bilateral trade target of `20 billion by 2015.

The State unit of the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) has adopted a resolution urging the Centre to allot the entire quantum of power generated by the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project to Tamil Nadu initially.

At the end of the unit’s executive committee meeting at Sathyamurti Bhavan on Monday, its president M. Yuvaraj told reporters that fuel was being loaded into the Kudankulam units one and two. As Tamil Nadu was reeling under a power crisis for years, the power produced by these plants was essential for the State to tide over the situation. Protestors who were spreading misinformation should be immediately arrested.

Documentary film that shows different facets of the issue

A thousand vociferous appeals in Tamil against a nuclear plant merge into Bob Marley’s inspiring call to fight for one’s rights. A little girl arranges electric bulbs to form the words, ‘Say no to nuclear’. Cut to images from a city street filled with high-decibel news channel airwaves, describing the tense situation near the Kudankulam nuclear plant as passersby stop to take a look at the TV screens near a shop window.

Ahead of a bilateral meeting here Monday, Russia said Sunday the cost of the next phase of the Kood-ankulam atomic project will rise if it has to bear extra liabilities in case of a possible nuclear accident.

Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin, who has come for the Inter-Governmental Commission meeting, told reporters: “If there are several points that require additional assurances, of course it will require additional money to be paid by India.”

Kudankulam plant must be governed by constitutional principles of absolute liability and ‘polluter pays’

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday issued notice to the Centre on a writ petition seeking a direction that the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu not commissioned without resolving Russia’s liability in case of a nuclear accident. A Bench of Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra granted the Centre three weeks to respond to the petition by the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, Common Cause, the former Union Power Secretary E.A.S. Sarma and social activist from Tamil Nadu G. Sundarrajan.

A sea-based agitation against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project passed off peacefully on Monday, with around 700 boats, including 150 mechanised vessels, carrying more than 3,000 fishermen participating in the protest.

With black flags fluttering on their boats, protesters raised slogans against the ready-to-be-commissioned nuclear complex and the Central and State governments.

Nuclear Power Corporation (NPC), which completed initial fuel loading at the Kudankulam plant, would soon seek the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) nod to close the reactor vessel before starting the process for the reactor to attain criticality.

Meanwhile, NPC and the Depart-ment of Atomic Energy are preparation its arguments on safety measures at the Kudankulam project for Thursday’s hearing in the Supreme Court. NPC has finished initial fuel loading in phase-I of the project on October 2.