Bharat Rakshak

Bade wrote:^^ That sounds a selective choice of approved methods based on personal whims.

Jhujar wrote:Raat ke Panchi Still Bajaying Their Bansi: Yeh Chronic Khaansi Cause Haansi In Jhansi

The Tortoise and the Hare Indian influentials tend to match up to China and look down on Pakistan. Lately, New Delhi’s strategic calculations have become more complicated.

Before the 1998 Pokhran tests, Indian political leaders, civil servants, and defense scientists were surprised by Pakistan’s flight-test of the Ghauri. After the Pokhran tests, they were surprised by Pakistan’s quick rejoinder. They are now surprised by Rawalpindi’s attachment to short-range delivery systems for nuclear weapons[/b].India’s nuclear program has always been constrained by duality, seeking the moral high ground while still attending to national security imperatives. George Perkovich describes this duality in India’s Nuclear Bomb (1999) as an odd combination of “defiant assertiveness” and “diffident timidity.” These countervailing patterns run so deep that, despite Pakistan’s nuclear exertions, New Delhi’s measured pace of attending to its deterrent might not change appreciably. Koithara, Saran, and Shankar constitute the public vanguard of efforts to rouse Indian decision-makers to quicken their pace and to take operational requirements more seriously.

Sickness being attributed to wind turbines is more likely to have been caused by people getting alarmed at the health warnings circulated by activists, an Australian study has found.

Acharya wrote:

Jhujar wrote:The Tortoise and the Hare
India’s nuclear program has always been constrained by duality, seeking the moral high ground while still attending to national security imperatives. George Perkovich describes this duality in India’s Nuclear Bomb (1999) as an odd combination of “defiant assertiveness” and “diffident timidity.” These countervailing patterns run so deep that, despite Pakistan’s nuclear exertions, New Delhi’s measured pace of attending to its deterrent might not change appreciably.

Looks like a bogus article

sia's triangular arms race has traditionally reflected the rivalries between India and China and India and Pakistan, but according to an influential former adviser to Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, Pakistan now regards the United States as a potential threat.
In an article for The Hindu newspaper, Shyam Saran said Islamabad had invested in a new generation of plutonium-based warheads, increased the size range of its arsenal, and improved the accuracy of its missiles.Washington has voiced its concerns over the build-up in the region but believes it reflects Pakistan's long-standing fear of arch rival India's conventional force superiority.But according to Mr Saran, Islamabad's burgeoning nuclear arsenal is increasingly aimed at deterring its fractious ally in the war on terror, the United States. Its fear that Washington may strike to wipe out Pakistan's nuclear capability dates back to just after the 9/11 attacks when then President Musharraf said it had been warned to support the war on terror or face being "bombed back to the stone age."
Despite his acquiescence, relations between the two countries have been strained ever since and reached their lowest point following the 2011 special forces raid which killed Osama bin Laden at his home in the centre of Pakistan's main garrison town A BarriBattaabad."While the immediate threat to its strategic assets passed, Pakistan's suspicions of US intentions in this regard have now risen to the level of paranoia," Mr Saran said.

As engineers race to commission the nuclear power plant at Kudankulam, the government has given its nod to build two more such units of 1,000 MW at the site in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu.

The Cabinet Committee on Security, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Tuesday evening, approved the proposal to grant administrative and financial sanction for building units 3&4 at Kudankulam site, officials said.

The decision comes at a time when engineers of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) are working to commission the first 1,000 MW unit of the Kudankulam nuclear power project.

Sources said the estimated cost of building the two plants has been pegged at Rs. 20 crore per megawatt.

The CCS nod paves the way for signing of the general framework agreement (GFA) between NPCIL and Russian suppliers of nuclear equipment.

The GFA will spell out the terms and conditions for building the two 1,000 MW VVER-type reactors at Kudankulam.

As per the agreement between India and Russia, a total of six nuclear power plants can be built at Kudankulam.

Last year, Indian and Russia had signed a protocol for funding two new units at Kudankulam.

As per the protocol, Russia will extend an export credit of $3.400 billion to Russian organisations to help build the units at four per cent interest.

The Kudankulam project is part of a comprehensive Inter-governmental agreement (IGA) signed between India and the erstwhile USSR in 1988 for cooperation in areas of peaceful uses of atomic energy.

A fresh IGA was signed between India and the Russian Federation in December 2008 which provided for construction of four more nuclear power units at Kudankulam.

Japan Steel Works Ltd. (5631), a nuclear parts supplier for customers from Areva SA (AREVA) to Hitachi Ltd. (6501), is considering tieups in Southeast Asia and India after the Fukushima disaster squeezed demand at home and in the U.S.　The company will have a tough time generating orders in the next two years, President Ikuo Sato said in an interview in Tokyo. Forging ventures to make valves, tubes and other smaller parts involved in nuclear reactor construction will help open export markets for key products, he said.“If we’re able to form such partnerships, it will be easier to enter such markets,” Sato said. “It will be necessary for us to tie with companies” that are seeking to improve their access to technology.Emerging markets offer an opportunity for growth amid growing opposition to nuclear power in Japan and elsewhere after the Fukushima tsunami and earthquake prompted the shutdown of almost all Japan’s atomic stations.
Japan Steel operates the only plant in the world capable of producing the central part of a nuclear reactor’s containment vessel in a single piece, reducing the risk of a radiation leak. The company said on Nov. 16 that orders for forged steel used in nuclear and thermal power plants would probably total 30 billion yen ($312 million) in the year ending March 31, 43 percent lower than levels two years ago.
“Given that it will be difficult for the company to expect demand in Japan, the key is to what extent they will be able to secure overseas projects, especially in China,” said Ryo Tazaki, an analyst at Nomura Securities Co. in Tokyo.

During his second meeting in four months with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the first unit of Kudankulam Unit I in Tamil Nadu will be operationalised next month. He also told Mr. Putin that the Cabinet Committee on Security’s had given sanction to units 3 and 4 at the same site. Official sources have in the past said the second unit could be commissioned six months after the first unit starts generating power. This means that the second unit could go on stream in November if the first one starts functioning in April. The plant has been the focus of protests by anti-nuclear activists who have drawn attention to the meltdown at the Fukushima plant in Japan as well as the non-application of the Liability Law on the first two units.

The Centre will now allocate 1,000 MW to Tamil Nadu from the total generation of 2,000 MW (of the first two units), against the original proposal of 930 MW.

S P Udhayakumar, convenor of People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy, spearheading the stir against the plant, said the agitation was only for their welfare.

Dudkin told the paper that the VVER – 1000 technology, which has been used in the reactors under construction at Kudankulam, was a proven one, as two similar reactors constructed by his company, Atomstroyexport, a Rosatom subsidiary were functioning well in China.

“Inter-governmental agreement had been signed for constructing two nuclear reactors of 1,000 MWe in Bangladesh and construction on two reactors with similar capacity is to be started at Vietnam. Of course, we have planned to construct four more reactors at Kudankulam. This is purely because of the highest quality standards Russia has evolved over the years and the components with exceptionally superior quality,” The Hindu quoted Dudkin as saying.

Dudkin also told the paper that a number of passive safety measures installed had made the reactors the safest in the world. The report said that the passive heat removal system that could extract the residual heat from the reactors even during absolute power cut, quick boron injection system, the core catcher that would cover completely even the melted core, hydro accumulators and an array of few more safety features had made the KNPP reactors unique in the industry.

In fact, we will be pleased to introduce such futuristic safety measures in the reactors we are going to construct in other parts of the world,” Dudkin told the paper.

The Kudankulam units comprise of 1,000 MW reactors of the VVER-1000 model being constructed by NPCIL and Russia’s Atomstroyexport.

In Germany, which has announced plans to shut down all reactors by 2022, we calculate that nuclear power has prevented an average of over 117,000 deaths from 1971-2009"

The results are projected total emissions that would have probably led to the deaths of 1.84 million people between 1971 and 2009 based on average mortality estimates from fossil combustion pollution. This is probably an underestimate, said Hansen and co-author Pushker Kharecha, noting that the life-cycle mortality estimates are the biggest source of uncertainty in the report:

The absence of evidence of large mortality from past nuclear accidents is consistent with recent findings that the 'linear no-threshold' model used to derive the nuclear mortality factor might not be valid for the relatively low radiation doses that the public was exposed to from nuclear power plant accidents."

svenkat wrote:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Inferior-parts-being-used-in-Kudankulam-Nuclear-Power-Plant-Top-scientist/articleshow/19423146.cms

The Centre, speeding up the process to commission the first unit of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, received a jolt from one of the country's noted nuclear scientist{ ???} and former chairman of Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) A Gopalakrishnan, who raised doubts about the quality of equipment in the plant. "Sub-standard materials have come to the Kudankulam plant and they are causing problems," he alleged.....
.

GuruPrabhu wrote:here is another hint for those who are interested. It is an article by another hero of the fan club, A. Gopalakrishnan:

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/1507567/ ... uel-exists

Compare this to MVR and one gets into hero worship dissonance. But, combine the two and you will see that one of the two has to be wrong.

[this hint ought to help "fault finders" connect the dots]

Sushupti wrote:Shut out of BARC, U.S. scientist foresaw Indian nuclear test

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/s ... epage=true

A year before India conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, a Bombay-based scientific representative of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission was quite certain it would do so ‘in the not too distant future.’ Concurring with his assessment, a senior U.S. diplomat felt Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would take the step to offset public disenchantment with her government and the country’s growing economic troubles.

The American scientist’s suspicions grew, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks, when the Indian nuclear establishment shut its doors on him, afraid that he was being used by the U.S. government to spy on them and would find out too much.

It is generally thought that the world was taken by surprise when the ‘Buddha smiled’ in Pokhran on May 18, 1974. But the cable sent by the U.S. Consul General in Bombay on April 4, 1973, was quite certain that India was on the verge of testing a nuclear device.

“As aura of Indo-Pak victory and 1970/72 electoral successes dim and as public disenchantment with PM and GoI mount reflecting increased economic distress it occurs to us in Bombay that in addition usual scapegoats, ‘demonstration’ of a nuclear device for peaceful purposes in not too distant future,” the U.S. Consul-General in Bombay wrote in the cable (1973NEWDE03743_b, secret).

The main source for the assessment was the AEC representative, John Pinajian, who had shared his ‘personal evaluation’ of India’s nuclear position with the Consul General, based on his own observations at ‘various levels in India, broad extrapolations based on technical papers presented at Indian scientific meetings as well as impression gathered from public and personal comments made by member atomic energy community.’

Dr. Pinajian told the U.S. Consul General that it was “fully within the capabilities” of India to “demonstrate its nuclear capability by exploiting peaceful application of a nuclear device” in the “near future and indications available to this end suggest that GoI may be working to this end.”

Dr. Pinajian was also of the view that the Department of Atomic Energy was laying the groundwork for the export by India of “largely ingenous [sic] atomic reactors (200 MWe).”

His impressions, Dr. Pinajian told the diplomat, were based on several things. Although he had “excellent credentials and contacts dating back to Oak Ridge” (the Tennessee city where some U.S. nuclear research facilities are located), he was being rebuffed by top scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) and the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR).

Despite an agreement with AEC India that the USAEC was making Dr. Pinajian “available as an expert,” and a suggestion by Dr. Homi Sethna, then AEC India chairman, that the scientist should ‘immediately’ go to work at BARC, Dr. Raja Ramanna, the head of BARC avoided meeting him until Dr. Sethna personally intervened to get him the appointment.

But the meeting was fruitless for the American scientist, as the BARC chief said it would be ‘impractical’ for him to work in the particular division he wanted to be in, as that would require permission from the Centre.

{So it confirms he was on an intel gathering mission in that division!}

Dr. Ramanna pushed him off to TIFR instead. There too, Dr. Pinajian tried in vain to meet the institute’s boss, Dr. M.G.K. Menon. A member of Dr. Menon’s staff, Professor B.V. Thosar, had asked for permission to work with Dr. Pinajian, but “months have passed” and neither had heard anything.

The scientist felt this was significant as both BARC and TIFR would be “principal Orgnaisations [sic] involved in any move toward development of a nuclear device.”

{He gets refused access to restricted areas in BARC and TIFR and decides India is working on a bomb! Suffers from Paredolia}

Even Dr. Sethna, the USAEC scientist’s initial supporter, seemed to have abandoned him. “Additionally Pinajian has had increasing difficulty in seeing Sethna (has not seen since Feb although has requested appointment on number of occasions),” the cable notes.

The cable says that “key men in India’s atomic energy hierarchy are apparently reluctant to allow Pinajian to become involved in any access to these institutions. In my view their reluctance derives from their concern that Pinajian is knowledgeable and could find out more than they might like that he should. They probably fear we may be using him to observe their activities in the nuclear field”.

{So their fears are fully justified now so many years later.}


Then, despite Dr. Sethna’s statement that Trombay is “wide open and we have no secrets,” Pinajian told the U.S. Consul General, his contacts with personnel working there “(and he has a number of excellent contacts who value his advice) do not bear this out. His contacts suggest that outsiders working at Trombay are not free to roam around. In fact, friendly sources are unable to tell him who is working on a project and what is being done.”

{Again he is abusing his old contacts to find out about a particular project and who is working on it! And he claims to be research scholar!!!. Name one country that allows outsiders to roam around in high security areas? What an ego and a duffer.}

Pinajian, says the cable, was satisfied from all indications available to him that the Indians are doing extensive work in the field of plutonium, recognising in addition that a “strong base for plutonium work is also necessary for utilization of plutonium in the DAE breeder reactor program.”


{Yet he claims India was working on a bomb!}

SaiK wrote:Is this the right thread for this? where is the nuke thread?

http://flonnet.com/stories/20130419300707700.htm
wow!

It expects no observable health effect in the wider population...

SaiK wrote:Is this the right thread for this? where is the nuke thread?

http://flonnet.com/stories/20130419300707700.htm
wow!

The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) on Friday acknowledged that four valves were found defective during tests at the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu and said they were being replaced.

In a press release, the Board also indicated that the long overdue commissioning of the plant could be further delayed as the new valves were again being put to the test. “The test results at the current stage of commissioning for various systems are seen to be within the acceptable limits. However, during testing of thousands of valves installed in the plant, the performance of four valves of a particular type was found deficient. As corrective measures, the valve components are being replaced by NPCIL [Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited] and their performance is further being subjected to regulatory review. Subsequent clearance will be granted by AERB only after a satisfactory review.”

Reacting to media reports, which raised the issue of quality of components originating from a particular Russian supplier, the AERB stressed that the system of quality checks, testing and reviews specified and enforced by it had the necessary depth to detect and correct deviations in quality. Elaborating on the system adopted to ensure quality, the press release issued by AERB Secretary R. Bhattacharya said multilevel checks were in place for ensuring conformance with the quality requirements. A nuclear power plant would be considered suitable for operation only after all components were found to be functioning properly. “In general, several thousand components are installed in a nuclear power plant and as is normal for all complex engineering systems, occasional variations in their performances during their commissioning trials are expected. The very intent of such commissioning trials is to identify non-conformance, if any, and take corrective actions,” the release said. Speaking to The Hindu over telephone, AERB Chairman S.S. Bajaj said the NPCIL had procured new valves for replacement and was testing them. He however, declined to comment on how long the testing would take place on the ground that it was still under way.

While Tamil Nadu will get 925 MW of power, Karnataka has been allotted 442 MW, Kerala 266 MW and Puducherry will be given 67 MW. The remaining 300 MW of power is in unallocated category.

“After discussions between the Union Power Minister and the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, the ministry agreed to consider providing additional 100 MW to Tamil Nadu from the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant,” Mr.Chacko said in his communication to MADITSSIA.

SC gives green signal to Kudankulam N-Plant :
The Supreme Court will has pronounced its verdict on a plea seeking stay on commissioning of the controversial Kudankulam nuclear plant and its scrapping. The SC has given its nod to the commissioning of the Kundankulam Nuclear Power plant this month. The SC says the plant has been set up for the welfare and sustainable growth of the people.

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra, which had reserved the verdict following marathon arguments in the last three months, delivered the judgement today.

A batch of petitions was filed by anti-nuclear activists challenging the project on the ground that safety measures recommended for the plant by an expert body have not been put in place.

They also raised various questions pertaining to the disposal of nuclear waste, the plant's impact on the environment and the safety of people living nearby, besides other issues linked to the controversial plant.