The Indian government's demonisation of NGOs opposed to coal mining marks a backwards step in climate commitments. India is heading towards being the number two leading world emitter of carbon dioxide, missing out on a renewable energy (RE) revolution worldwide.
Prime Minister Modi's government has frozen the bank accounts of Greenpeace India, part of a wider campaign against 'anti-national' movements that challenge India's development policies based on the aggressive exploitation of coal, minerals, big hydro and nuclear power.
The multi-reactor meltdown accident in Japan beginning last March 2011 has not ended. Plants continue to leak radiation and shockingly no sytematic monitoring of radiation levels is taking place.
Have our rulers decided to place India on the wrong side of history and arrest her social progress? Going by their policy of forcibly promoting nuclear power regardless of its hazards, environmental damage potential, high economic and social costs, and unpopularity, that seems to be the case.
While countries all over the world review their nuclear energy plans and safety measures in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the Indian government still pushes ahead with it's fiercely opposed Jaitapur plant.
Indian protest against nuclear power plans are answered with violent oppression. The brute force used to counter the public protests only worsens the situation and already has claimed one life.
There are 20 nuclear power plants in India, two in Pakistan and plans exist to expand the industry across South Asia; yet there are always multiple risks that exist as a result of the technology that cannot be mitigated.
As the Japanese nuclear crisis escalates in severity, and the myth about nuclear energy being safe is exposed - movements around the world are calling for a change of policy and moratoriums on plant construction.
The Japanese crisis is a wake up call for India, which is currently building of one of the world's largest nuclear power plants at Jaitapur, despite massive popular protest. When such a disaster can occur in an industrially advanced country like Japan, India, whose atomic agency is notorious for its poor safety standards, needs to rethink its nuclear ambitions.
As the global nuclear industry's fate hangs in the balance, India must rethink its nuclear power expansion plans and impose a moratorium on new reactors.
Despite a terrible history with nuclear technology, corporate and state actors try to disconnect these mega disasters from the energy industry in order to "normalise" that which continues threatens our very existance.
Around a hundred thousand people perished in Chernobyl. The toll from the nuclear disaster in Fukushima is likely to be high. The CNDP demands a moratorium on all further civilian nuclear activities in India and thorough review and transparent audit of the safety performance of all nuclear reactors.
President Obama’s decision comes despite the fact that US government and independent models predict an 80% chance Polar Bears will become mostly extinct by 2050, with total extinction this century without cuts in emissions.
Even with increases in energy efficiency, and despite the 45 percent who have no electricity connection - India's policy goal to quadruple energy consumption by 2032 represents a catestrophic GDP-ism focused on destructive models of development.
As the worlds new leading energy consumer, China's choice of energy strategy over the coming years will have defining implications for international relations and the fate of the environment.
As the Asia-Europe Summit gets ready to meet in early October, what are the implications of the rising power of Asia for progress on tackling poverty, inequality and climate change?
India's story starkly illustrates the disconnect between GDP and social progress, and the need for radically new economics developed from the bottom up.
