Courtesy: Gnani Sankaran

1. from 31% the contribution of electricity production in Japan by Nuclear Power Units is down to 2%, because he government of Japan had shut down 52 nuclear power plants and the remaining 2 are may be shut down in May. do you know the reasons for the same?

2. are you aware that there have been 200 accidents in the Kalpakkam atomic power plant and one of them was very nearly catastrophic.

3. the former Russian President Gorbachev has stated more than 2000 people died of the Chernobyl disaster, however our former President Kalam claims that only 57 people died in this accident (in his bid to promote the Atomic power plant in Koodankulam), do you know what is true.

4. while the Adayar Cancer Institute in Chennai has listed ‘radiation’ as one of the causes for cancer, the director of this institution, Dr. Shantha, appears on television advertisements placed by Atomic Energy Commission to claim that radiation doesn’t cause cancer, do you know what is the truth behind this.

5. the former head of atomic energy commission India, M.R.Srinivasan claims that at the time of choosing the Koodankulam site for the atomic power plant, the place looked like a desert and there was no habitation around, if this were true, the thousands of people who have been living there and who have been leading the protest must be a mirage of some kind, do you if they are for true.

6. the atomic energy commission of India has been revising its claims of electricity generation every five years but has never been able to deliver the promised amount of electricity in the last forty years. they have produced less than 5% of the promised electricity thus far. are you aware of this?

7. no atomic power plant in India can claim to be producing more than 50% of its capacity and the 30 year old Kalpakkam achieved this landmark only in the last years, are you aware of this?

8. if Koodankulam goes operational immediately also, it cannot generate electricity till August and even then it can only generate 40% of its promised 1000 MW and of this 400MW, about 48 MW will be consumed by the plant itself and of the remaining 352 MW, 70 MW will go in transmission losses and of the remaining 282 MW even if Narayanaswami (the Minister of State at the PMs office from Pondicherry who has been leading the government’s tirade against the anti-Nuclear plant activists) prevails, Tamilnadu may get only about 140 MW (against the current shortfall of over 1000MW for the state), are you aware of this?

9. Kalpakkam atomic power plant was affected not just during the tsunami, but, also during the recent Thane cyclone. are you aware of it? there is a recent publication of an volcano near Kalpakkam and the atomic energy commission is unaware of this, do you know about this?

10. do you know that the atomic energy commission made claims that no tsunami or cyclone can affect Kudankulam and Kalpakkam and after the occurrence of the tsunami (2004) it has revised this claim to ‘no tsunami over 9 mts will occur’, are you aware of such revised prediction?

11. the Russian company that has built the atomic power plant in Koodankulam has enquiries being carried out against it in that country for poor quality work and corruption. are you aware of this?

12. if there is a major accident in Kalpakkam, it could potentially destroy Poes Garden (where the residence of Jayalalitha is based in Chennai), Gopalapuram (where Karunanidhi, the ex-CM lives) and Pondicherry. similarly, if any accident takes place in Kudankulam, much of southern Tamilnadu and parts of Kerala too can be completely wiped out. are you aware of this?

13. are you aware that no where in the world insurance companies provide insurance cover for atomic power plant accidents though they provide cover for all kinds of man-made and natural calamities from air plane crash to natural death, why do you think they don’t?

14. the former head of the atomic regulation authority of India and an atomic scientist Gopalakrishnan has stated that the regulation authority has less power and influence than the atomic energy commission and it is unable to get the information required for doing its duty, do you know this?

15. though your government placed in the floor of the assembly a suggestion that ‘if more than a crore filament bulbs across the state were to be replaced by CFL bulbs, about 500MW electricity can be saved’, so far this has not been executed by your govt. authorities. do you know why it has not been executed till now?

16. the two ‘expert’ committees set-up by the central government and your state government respectively, have refused to meet with the scientists who are protesting against the atomic power plant, do you know why this is so?

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(translated from Kalki by Ramasubramaniam)