EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Vemband Wetland in Kerala is a Ramsar Site, and also a Critically Vulnerable Coastal Area (CVCA). One of the three meeting points of the lake’s waters and the Lakshadweep Sea is at Thottappally in Purakkad Panchayat of Alapuzha. It is a Marma Point. About 600,000 cubic meters of mineral sand has been dredged out from the River[Read More…]
Abstract Kerala, the South-Western State in India with a population of 35 million was in the global limelight for successfully flattening the covid curve and for the lower case-fatality ratio (CFR) during the first year of the pandemic. Ten months down the line, the State is again in the media glare for successfully implementing the covid vaccination drive. Kerala’s vaccination[Read More…]
VT Padmanabhan and Joseph Makkolil After a brutal second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, Indian people are anxiously waiting for the third wave, which is expected to arrive in about 6 to 8 weeks in August-September. The first wave was driven by two variants Alpha and Delta, which were more contagious than the ancestral strains. Recently a new variant – Delta[Read More…]
Written by VT Padmanabhan and Joseph Makkoli The second wave of Covid-19 that began in Jan 2021 is on the decline, as epidemiologists expect that the infection rates would reach the nadir in a month or so. The second wave can also be called as India wave as the pandemic grew much faster here. It can also be called as[Read More…]
With a confirmed caseload of more than 8.5 million as on 08 November 2020, India is the second Covid power in the world. The USA is of course on top of the heap with more than 10 million cases. Infection rate (cases per 1000 population) is 31 in the world, 6.1 in India, and 31 on the US. Andorra, an[Read More…]
Adverse Effects among participants of Oxford-Zeneca Vaccin Trials in the UK In 1922-23, about two years after the end of Spanish Flu which infected over 500 million people, the United Kingdom experienced a very small epidemic of a very rare disorder called transverse myelitis (TM). No virus or any micro-organism behind this. These were adverse effects from vaccinations against small[Read More…]
As on 6th August 2020, the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) has affected 213 countries and territories around the world infecting over 19 million people of whom 0.7 million died. The US is on top with 5 million cases and 163,000 death. Brazil and India holds the second and third slots with 2.9 and 2 million cases. In terms of infection rates, Qatar,[Read More…]
There were 16.9 Million Covid-19 cases in the world as on 28 Jul 2020. This represents about 0.22% of the global population. Among the countries, the USA is on top with 4.5 M, closely followed by Brazil – 2.5 M and India 1.5 M. In short, these three countries with a total population of 1.9 billion have about half the[Read More…]
As on 26 July 2020, there are 16.5 million confirmed cases and 0.65 million deaths of Covid-19, an infectious disease caused by the virus- SARS-Cov-2 in 214 countries and territories under the United Nations system. In India, Kerala State reported the first laboratory confirmed Covid-19 on 30 Jan 2030, ten days after the eminent Chinese epidemiologist Dr Zhong Nanshan announced[Read More…]
We have been seeing and hearing a lot of visual and print media news and statistics of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. This will continue for some time to come. Almost all reports give the absolute number of cases and deaths. As on 7 Jul 20, with nearly 3.1 million cases and 134,000 deaths the USA is on top, Brazil with[Read More…]
A case study on the Role of Dams on the River Periyar during the 2018 Kerala Floods Note: This analysis of the 2018 Kerala Floods, completed in September 2018 could not be published due to health and other reasons. The first phase of the 2018 floods before August 15 was more due to mismanagement or hoarding of water in the[Read More…]
The 2009 swine flu pandemic caused by a new strain of H1N1 virus infected as many as 1.4 billion people across the globe and killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people, during eight months according to the US Centre for Disease Control. The newly emerged coronavirus disease of 2019 (Covid-19) caused by SARS-Cov-2 virus is nowhere near that, at least as[Read More…]
With cases reported from over 100 countries, corona virus disease of 2019 (covid-19) is a pandemic now. The disease is caused by the virus called SARS-Cov-2, which is thought to have jumped from the flying mammal bats, sold at the illegal wildlife market inside the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province in South Central China.[Read More…]
The Government of India published the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification in 1991, approved the Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) in 1996, and appointed the Kerala State Coastal Zone Management Authority (KCZMA) for implementing it in 1998. After two decades of its coming into being, the government says there are 26,000 buildings constructed in violation of the CRZ Rules in[Read More…]
DEMOLITION OF BUILDINGS VIOLATING COASTAL REGULATION ZONE (CRZ) NOTIFICATIONS IN KERALA, INDIA, 2020 Executive Summary The Kerala State is the biggest violator of the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification, which regulates construction activities in the sensitive coasts of the sea and the backwaters in India. According one report, there are 1800 buildings, including star hotels, luxury apartment blocks, shopping malls[Read More…]
The KNNPP is a technological hoax, an abominable goof-up. The dogged determination to have commissioned it shows that the authorities is mortgaged to alien corporate interests reminding us of Andrew Undershaft in George Bernard Shaw, “Well, I am a millionaire and that is my religion”.
The Indiabased Neutrino Observaory (INO) proposed to be set up under the Cardamom Hills (09.9632361°N, 077.2729306°E) in the Western Ghats, a UNESCO heritage site, near the KeralaTamil Nadu border with its entry portal in Pottipuram village in Theni district of Tamil Nadu has been opposed by the local communities and the environmentalists. The first INO Risk Audit Report was published in Countercurrents. 2 The main issues raised in the the Risk Audit Group’s articles are: (a) The construction has the potential to cause hydrogeological calamities which will affect the livelihood of close to 10 million people in six districts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, who depend on the waters stored in reservoirs within the INO neighbourhood.3 (b) Violation of the Federal Principles by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change as this is an interstate project (Kerala and Tamil Nadu States) and the Government of Kerala has not even been informed about it. The appeal against the grant of environmental clearance to INO in the Hon’ble National Green Tribunal, Southern Zone Chennai filed by G Sundararajan is coming up for final arguments in early March 2017. Among the grounds for the appeal was the potential impacts on the aquifer and water bodies. About a year after the filing of the appeal in NGT and some four years after the award of prior environmental clearance by the Government of India, the Tata Institute of Fundamenal Research (TIFR) has kindly uploaded on its website the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of INO prepared in December 2010 by the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO). With the publication of the DPR it will be easy for Lawyers Sundarrajan and Vetri Selvan to convince the Hon’ble Tribunal about the impending water related disaster if the scientists are allowed to blast the Ghats. This report clearly mentions that tunnelling can disrupt the aquifers, there will be water loss and elaborate arrangements will be made for pumping the water out. Water Loss in INO’s Detailed Project Report The INO proponents were aware of the ‘inevitability’ of aquifer damage as these quotes from INO’s Detailed Project Report (DPR)4 prepared in December 2010 by the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO) reveal: Read the full report Here[Read More…]
During December 2016, the world’s first Generation-III pressusrized water reactor (PWR)at Kudamkulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) in India will be shut down for its second refueling. The 1000 MW WWER reactor, a joint venture of Russia’s Rosatom and the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) was grid connected three years ago. About 56 used (spent) fuel assemblies will be[Read More…]
What is being done at KKNPP-1 is known as ‘power up-rate experiment’ defined as “the operation beyond the power level licensed by the regulatory body” (IAEA). There are three types of power uprates: (i) “measurement uncertainty recapture” uprate, which involves an increase of less than 2% and is achieved by implementing enhanced techniques for calculating reactor power levels, (ii) “stretch” uprates where increases are between 2 and 7% and (iii) “extended” uprates with increases of up to 20%. Stretch and extended uprates involve changes to instrumentation settings and significant modifications to turbines, condensate pumps, motors, main generators and/or transformers. Since an uprated machine is made to work beyond the design limit, there is always a risk of an accident
On 5th August 2016, the Russian News Agency TASS reported from Moscow that on 10 August 2016, “the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take part via videoconference in the ceremony dedicated to handover of the first power unit of Kudankulam nuclear power plant (KKNPP-1) to the Indian side” and during the conference the “leaders of both nations will hail the fact of plant’s first unit”
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
