Nearly 200 arrested in India nuclear protest

Police in a southern Indian state said Tuesday they have arrested nearly 200 activists who were protesting the start of work at a long-stalled nuclear power plant. Engineers resumed working Tuesday on one of two 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactors in Tamil Nadu's Koodankulam region a day after the local government gave the green light for the resumption of the Russia-backed project. "We arrested around 190 protesters on Monday but today there has been no arrests and everything is now peaceful," said Vijendra Bidari, police chief of Tirunelvel district where Koodankulam is situated. Bidari said by telephone that policemen were monitoring the site of the plant where work was put on hold last September after thousands of villagers and anti-nuclear activists began protesting. "Those we have arrested were involved in this protest. They are from the surrounding areas," Tirunelvel police chief told AFP. The Koodankulam plant is one of many India hopes to build as part of its ambitions to produce 63,000 megawatts of nuclear power by 2032 -- a nearly 14-fold increase from current levels. India's existing 20 nuclear reactors currently generate just 4,780 megawatts. Coal-dependent India has a peak power shortage of around 12 percent. But energy-starved India has been caught in the backlash against atomic power caused by the tsunami-led meltdown at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi power plant in March 2011 which forced the evacuation of some 160,000 people. Since the Fukushima crisis, Indian activists have also campaigned to stop work scheduled to start in 2013 at Jaitapur in western Maharashtara state which would be one of the world's biggest nuclear facilities. Sukumar Banerjee, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission national regulator said there had been no damage to the Tamil Nadu Koodankulam plant as a result of the six-month neglect of the existing infrastructure. "We are very happy that work has started again and there is a full work force today," Banerjee told the Press Trust of India in Tirunelveli. "The plant is definitely very safe," he added, seeking to allay local fears that residents in surrounding areas might be exposed to hazardous radiation in the case of an accident at the site. India last month froze the assets of three non-profit groups it alleged were diverting foreign aid funds to fuel the anti-nuclear protests in Tamil Nadu. Nuclear energy has been a priority for India since 2008 when then US president George W. Bush signed into law a deal with New Delhi that ended a three-decade ban on US nuclear trade with the country. Since then, France, Russia and private US and Japanese firms have been locked in fierce competition to sell new reactors to India.