Rethinking NUCLEAR..!!!

                                                                Japan- Before Tsunami

                                                                  Japan-After Tsunami

There are growing calls in Europe for nuclear power to be reassessed and possibly dumped. There are 150 reactors in use within the EU, and replacing them with conventional fossil-fuel based power. Switzerland has put three planned plants on hold and Austria wants a new safety regime for all European reactors.

With the array of disasters hitting JAPAN and devastating every nook and corner of the country, leaves us with a strange but true query...What is that, calls for an urgent need?   “development or clean development.” With the nuclear disaster hitting japan , what can we say? Does clean energy come with such a  huge price TAG ? But then Nuclear being the most clean energy today, in the context of the overarching emissions, where will our decision to rethink nuclear as against conventional one lead us to? What about our protocols and pacts ....what about our reduction targets? Can we, as a developing country afford to not go NUCLEAR?

All these questions may sound hard hitting, but then they need to be addressed. The scale and magnitude of natural disasters are any how out of any one’s reach. So foreseeing them should we not try and take steps to adapt to it? Or shall we place ourselves in a more comfortable situation of not being called as sustainably developed country...??


Emissions are always going to get worse before they get better, and industrialisation of the developing world is where most of this blow-out is occurring.

As per my perception, rethinking nuclear is no solution. Instead we as a country need to attempt to resolve some fundamental issues like , what kind of safeguards should we build to protect ourselves against these high risks (like Japan’s earthquake and tsunami combined)?Another question is: what if we are not nuclear and how long we can afford to be the same?

Also what about the risks & vulnerabilities of the communities placed around? I guess one can just go on when we are on the other side....but then having said this, it does not exempt us from answering them too...!!!!
Probably in the light of japan’s nuclear disaster , one can easily deduce that the strength of the Nuclear realm lies in safeguarding communities and still provide them the clean energy & not opting to choose either of them

Ambitious or Ambiguous???

 

Click to enlarge 

Rs. 200 crore  proposed to be allocated for launching Environmental Remediation Programmes from National Clean Energy Fund.
Rs. 200 crore proposed to be allocated for Green India Mission Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Rs. 21,000 crore allocated, which is   40 per cent higher than Budget for 2010-11.
 
All the facts , all the realities are lost in figures...!!! Where do we find the reality then? In the interiors of india...??? Ooops still to say...The "Bharat".. 
Whatsoever is our pace of development, whatsoever would be the numbers , however Big may be the amount declared for the future development ...the question still remains  are we really developing sustainably?  Or we are just trying to be the mirror images of the West?

                                                                      Click to enlarge 

When i was reading the budget, atleast for the sake of it..i was satisfied to see the CLIMATE CHANGE & ENVIRONMENT  to be mentioned as a separate identity, with an intention of treating it one. If we are saying we are developing , why are we still known to be a third world country ? Why are still BHARAT and INDIA as two varied entities..though we are geographically one?

The budget does seem to be ambitious . It hypnotizes us with the  ambiguous picture of development. But then if that is the case where is Environment vanished from the whole drama?
Ironically speaking.... I would be more than happy to hear that “ i must have not read the budget properly”.....!!!! 

With the Himalayas retreating due to the warming, with the heat waves killing people in larger parts of the world, with the floods & tsunamis knocking at our doors, still can we continue developing without considering the environment?

Then why is it so, that our government begins to shiver when it comes to pen down the facts & figures about the catastrophic situation we are in? Why do   sustainable/ environmental aspects   are still fidgeting to find a place in the such a significant document like BUDGET???

                                                                     Click to enlarge


Declaring hefty cash subsidies is not the end of the game? Wether the amount reaches our poor farmers or not? The budget appears to show a concern about the  agrarian INDIA , about the farmers, but then is it not invariably necessary to  monitor  the transfer of the same? 

We have all the state of the art malls but no electricity ...we have the entire of real estate booming..inviting huge investments but no infrastructure in place...we have multidimensional ambitions five year plans for development but never seen the dawn of reality due to corruption...we are 30% urban today and soon to be 60% without having solutions and facilities for the large chunk of the urban poor & their vulnerabilities?
  
With all these do we still have the right to even talk of development without addressing the fundamental errors?
So the budget for me still lies as only  a well presented speech  which completely undermines the environment and core issues of  sustainable development..