 |
|
India to place 14 reactors under
Sex workers to celebrate Women’s Day
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
TV channel staff attacked
BJP warns govt against Parliament disruption
|
|
India to place 14 reactors under IAEA scrutiny
New Delhi, March 7 As per the agreement eight other pressurised heavy water reactor stations (PHWRs) with 220 MW capacity would also be categorised as civilian and put under the scrutiny of the IAEA. The agreement, a copy of, which is available with The Tribune, said the country is now constructing a 500 MW prototype fast breeder reactor and none of the fast breeder reactors would be under the purview of the international agency. The agreement said: “India has decided to place under safeguards all future civilian thermal power rectors and civilian breeder reactors, and the Government of India retains the sole right to determine such reactors as civilian.” However, a facility will be “excluded” from the civilian list if it is located in a larger hub of strategic significance, notwithstanding the fact that it may not be normally engaged in activities of strategic significance, the agreement said. The
principle, which the government would follow in the separation of its civilian nuclear facility would be “whether subjecting a facility to IAEA safeguards would impact adversely on India’s national security,” the agreement said. The country has agreed for safeguards 14 thermal power reactors between 2006 and 2014. This will include the four presently safeguarded reactors --- Tarapur Atomic Power station 1&2 in Maharashtra, Rawatbhata Atomic Power Station 1&2 in Rajasthan---- and in addition Kundankulam 1&2 in Tamil Nadu. The agreement states that India is not in a position to accept safeguards on the protype fast breeder reactor (PFBR) and the fast breeder test reactor (FBTR), in Kalpakkam. “The fast breeder
programme is at the R&D stage and its technology will take time to mature and reach an advanced stage of development,” it said. India has agreed to permanently shut down the CIRUS reactor in 2010 and shift the fuel core of the APSRA reactor that was
purchased from France outside Baba Atomic Research Centre and make the fuel core available to be placed under safeguards in 2010. In the upstream facilities, the agreement said list of those specific facilities in the Nuclear Fuel Complex, which will be offered for safeguards by 2008 will be indicated separately. The Heavy Water Production plants at Thal, Tuticorin and Hazaria are proposed to be designated for
civilian use between 2006-09. “We do not consider these plants as relevant for safeguard purposes,” the agreement said. In the downstream
facilities, the statement said India is willing to accept safeguards in the `campaign’ mode after 2010 in respect of the Tarapur Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant. The Tarapur and Rajasthan “Away From Reactors’ spend fuel storage pools would be made available for safeguards with appropriate phasing between 20006-09. The agreement said the country has decided to declare nine research facilities as civilian. They are Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Institute of Plasma Research, Institute of Mathematics Sciences, Institute of Physics, Tata Memorial Centre, Board of Radiation and Isotope Technology and Harish Chandra Research Institute. “These facilities are safeguard irrelevant. It is our expectation that they will play a prominent role in international cooperation,” the agreement said. |
|
Sex workers to celebrate Women’s Day
New Delhi, March 7 And as women across the globe are invited to join the International Women’s Day celebrations on March 8, Nalini and her kind are forced to stay away. But Nalini along with 4,000 other sex workers have their own celebrations lined up. They are using March 8, to put forth their demands, highlight their contribution in checking the spread of HIV and seek a right to life. “We sell sex, we do not rob people, we provide service to society, we earn a living, then why should we be denied workers status?” she questions. Commercial sex workers across the country have been staging protests and raising a demand to be considered “workers”. Having met no success so far, they have chosen, March 8, to stake their claim in framing policies and decisions that affect their lives. “We want the government to include sex as work in the national labour schedule. We want them to change the amendments that they have proposed in the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act (ITPA) as these were incorporated without consultation with sex workers,” said Mrinal Kanti Dutta, Director, Durbar Mahila Samanvaya Committee, a grass root sex workers collective. Having come under the aegis of the National Network of Sex Workers (NNSW), they are protesting against the proposed amendments to the ITPA, like the clause 5 (c), which calls for punishing clients, “If you punish the client, who will come to us, not only will that have a negative repercussion on our livelihood, but will severely hamper the fight against HIV, which we are a part of,” said Swapna Gayen, Convenor of the NNSSW. Welcoming the deletion of sections 8 and 20 in the IPTA, sex workers are however livid that the proposed amendments empower the police to harass them and affects their livelihood by instituting punishment against any one letting out their premises for sex work. Blaming the government for failing to differentiate between consensual sex and trafficking, they claim that the government has failed to prevent trafficking and has instead made conditions worse off for sex workers. Rubbishing the government’s claims of providing alternative jobs to sex workers, Girija, a transgender sex worker from Mysore said, “Renuka Chowdhury wants to give me two buffaloes. How am I going to feed those? To feed those buffaloes I will need to go back to the park to sell sex so that they can feed on grass. The government may have good intentions, but they are misplaced”. Incidentally, most commercial sex workers who are here to participate in the March 8, event, are keen to highlight their role in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS.
|
|
TV channel staff attacked
Lucknow, March 7 BSP spokesperson Sudhir Goyal categorically denied the party’s involvement in the incident. Condemning the incident he said, “Mayawati has already served a legal notice to the channel. We believe in the rule of law and not in taking law into our hands. Our cadre is very disciplined and will not indulge in such vandalism”. Home Secretary Alok Sinha, assured the agitated media that the guilty will be brought to book within 24 hours. An FIR has been lodged at the Hazratganj police station.
|
|
BJP warns govt against Parliament disruption
New Delhi, March 7 “We condemn the disruption of Parliamentary proceedings by MPs of the ruling coalition, who are being provoked both by UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi and RJD chief Lalu Prasad for the sake of minority votes in the coming Assembly elections,” BJP Parliamentary Party spokesman V.K. Malhotra told newspersons here. He said an hour-long meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party decided to inform the Presiding Officers of both the Houses that the behaviour of the Treasury benches was “disgraceful”. |
|
Martyr cremated
New Delhi, March 7
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
In video (
