Wages for sanitary workers increased, says Mayor

Councillors, cutting across party lines, urged corporation officials to engage adequate number of personnel to clear roadside garbage getting piled up. At the council meeting held here on Wednesday, Chairman of Melapalayam Zone, Hyder Ali of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, who raised the issue, said garbage cleaning in his zone was in a pathetic state owing to poor number of sanitary workers.

If the proposal gets the nod it would be the first in the country

If the innovative proposal of constructing a wildlife overpass, that has been forwarded to the State Government by the Department of Forest here, gets the official nod, it will permanently end incidents of deer getting crushed under wheels of zooming vehicles on the national highway even as the herbivores move out of their habitat at Gangaikondan in search of food and water.

Commissioning of first unit of KNPP was scheduled for Dec last yr but has been delayed due to year-long protests

Seeking to take their campaign against Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant to a global level, anti nuclear activists today sought support of the international community in their efforts to scrap the project and make the world 'nuclear free'. In a letter to various Foreign Missions in New Delhi and here, People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE) said though global nuclear industry tries to promote nuclear power as the answer to global warming and climate destruction, the global community knows for sure that "poisoned Earth with nuclear waste cannot be the answer for polluted air".

Commissioning of the second unit is expected to follow early next year

The much-delayed Kudankulam nuclear power project is expected to become operational shortly, Ratan Kumar Sinha, Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission said today. "The work on the construction of the first of the two 1000 MW Light Water Reactors (LWRs) at Kudankulam is complete," Sinha said addressing a function in Mumbai to commemorate the 103rd birth anniversary of Homi Jehangir Bhabha, the founder of India's nuclear programme.

Nearly 1,800 agitators, including party leaders, arrested and released later

Hundreds of anti-nuclear activists, including many owing allegiance to different political parties, were arrested here on Monday after they attempted to march towards the Secretariat. The protesters alleged that the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project posed a grave threat to the safety of the people and demanded its closure.

Sri Lanka and India were discussing a bi-lateral agreement on how to ensure safety in case of a nuclear accident, Power and Energy Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka told Parliament yesterday.

Academics, activists and students gathered at the Town Hall on Wednesday evening to express solidarity with residents of Kudankulam, who have been resisting the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project.

Organised by the New Socialist Alternative, the demonstration saw participation from various anti-nuclear activist groups and organisations that have been campaigning for the rights of the Tamil-speaking population in Sri Lanka.

The first 1,000 MW unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu’s Tirunelveli district, which is just two steps away from reaching criticality, moved further ahead, with the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board early this week giving its nod for closing the reactor pressure vessel, which has already been loaded with 163 bundles of enriched uranium fuel.

Police make elaborate security arrangements at Collectorate

Representatives from various organisations and the villages, opposing the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project, separately submitted petitions during the weekly grievance day meeting held here on Monday seeking the unconditional dropping of all cases filed against the anti-nuke activists and immediate release of anti-KKNPP protestors arrested during the ongoing agitations and subsequently lodged in the prisons.

Impasse over nuclear liability provisions, other civil issues

India and Russia have put off their high-level engagement planned for November 1 by almost two months in order to reach an agreement on some contentious military and civil issues. The announcement about the meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Russian President Vladimir Putin was first made by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) here in a statement and later by the Russian government.