Indian fishermen reject nuclear plant

13 Sep­tem­ber 2011
RESISTANCE to nuclear pow­er is grow­ing across the world, fuelled by the Japan­ese dis­as­ter and now this week’s explo­sion in France.

13 Sep­tem­ber 2011
RESISTANCE to nuclear pow­er is grow­ing across the world, fuelled by the Japan­ese dis­as­ter and now this week’s explo­sion in France.

In India, IBN reports that 10,000 fish­er­men staged a day-long fast protest­ing against the Koodanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Project (KNPP) being set up in the dis­trict under Indo-Russ­ian col­lab­o­ra­tion.

It says: “Around 10,000 fish­er­men from var­i­ous ham­lets in and around Koodanku­lam joined a core group of more than 100 fel­low fish­er­men of Idinthakarai whose indef­i­nite fast on the issue entered the third day on Mon­day, police said.

“More than 4,000 peo­ple had observed a fast on Sun­day protest­ing against the plant.”

It added in an update: “Express­ing their sol­i­dar­i­ty, hun­dreds of fish­er­men from Kanyaku­mari left for Koodanku­lam on Mon­day to par­tic­i­pate in the hunger strike that is going on for the clo­sure of Kudanku­lam Nuclear Pow­er Plant .

“Led by the Kanyaku­mari parish priest Leon Ken­son, fish­er­men from Kanyaku­mari, Kovalam, Chin­na Mut­tom and sur­round­ing areas gath­ered in front of Our Lady of Ran­som Church at Kanyaku­mari on Mon­day morn­ing and left for Koodanku­lam in more than 50 vans.

“Ear­li­er, the coun­try boats in Kanyaku­mari and over 300 mech­a­nized boats at Chin­na Mut­tom fish­ing har­bour did not ven­ture into the sea as a form of protest.

“Apart from that, the fishermen’s chil­dren from Kanyaku­mari study­ing at var­i­ous schools and col­leges in the dis­trict did not report to their class­es today (Sep­tem­ber 12) and also accom­pa­nied their par­ents to par­tic­i­pate in the hunger strike at Koodanku­lam.”