More protests tomorrow
As part of the International Protests Against the India-Japan Nuclear Agreement, citizens groups and communities at grassroots today organised protests on the occasion of Japanese PM Shinzo Abe's visit to India. Many eminent intellectuals, artists, film-makers, doctors and social activists participated in these protests. We demand termination of nuclear deal's negotiations.
This is more than a bilateral deal. It would fast-track the nuclear projects that the Indian govt has proposed after the Indo-US nuclear deal. This agreement unleashes a destructive and dangerous nuclear expansion in India, in Maharashtra's Jaitapur, Gujarat's Mithi Virdi and Andhra Pradesh's Kovvada.
This deal is happening under pressure from US and France and their nuclear projects cannot go ahead without supply of crucial equipments from Japan.
The situation in Fukushima is nowhere near under control. The Japanese public broadcaster NHK informed yesterday about a massive spike in radiation.
The Japanese PM is selling nuclear technology to India to benefit the nuclear corporations of Japan whose business is on decline after Fukushima.
The people of Japan, and the Fukushima residents, have spoken against this deal as it would revive the corporates they are fighting against.
India has become an attractive location for the moribund global nuclear lobby after Fukushima and they are using the Indian system to open new market.
India doesn't have independent safety regulator, and didn't even conduct independent safety audit after Fukushima. The Modi govt has further diluted the suppliers' liability in case of an accident.
The govt is turning India into a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear technology.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki mayors have opposed the India-Japan nuclear agreement too, as they see it as a legitimisation of India's nuclear weapons and leading to arms race in Asia.
The deal is legitimising a Nuclear Weapons State outside the NPT regime and hence is a setback to the pursuit of nuclear disarmament.
Tomorrow, thousands of farmers and fisherfolk would protests in Jaitapur against the Shinzo-Abe Nuclear Deal and in their solidarity a citizens' protest has been organised in Delhi's Jantar Mantar starting 11am.
Similar solidarity protests would happen tomorrow in Bangalore, Nagpur, Chennai, Kolkata, London and New York.
We want better relationship between India and Japan, but both the countries should take lessons from Fukushima and Hiroshima and expand pro-people relationship rather than furthering the narrow interests of corporations.
With best regards,
Kumar Sundaram
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace(CNDP)
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