India's nuclear solution to global warming is generating huge domestic protests
Transparency and accountability are lacking at India’s largest nuclear park, where a Russian reactor was constructed with faulty parts...t was more than a $1 billion over its budget and six years late. But its full operation in Kudankulam, a remote fishing village in the southern tip of India about 1,700 miles from the capital, was portrayed by operators and builders from the two countries as the latest symbol of their national friendship and technical prowess, as well as a showcase step in India’s ambitious plan to bring 57 reactors on line to power the subcontinent’s economic surge...But S.P. Udayakumar, a bespectacled 56-year-old schoolteacher and protest leader in the region, isn’t rejoicing. From his bungalow in Nagercoil, a town 30 miles west of the plant whose wealth rests on making coconut fiber and the spice trade, Udayakumar has organized a long-running protest movement that has drawn in hundreds of thousands of residents.