COVER

No More Hiroshimas and Nagasakis! No More Bhopals!
Say No to Civil Nuclear Liability Bill!

On August 6 2010, it will be 65 years since the world's first atomic bomb was exploded when the United States flattened the city of Hiroshima in Japan, deliberately killing tens of thousands of civilians. Three days later, the US bombed Nagasaki. The victims of the bombings died a terrible death; the survivors were maimed, poisoned and deformed for generations to come. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are stark reminders of the US' willingness to perpetrate the worst possible acts of terror in order to secure its imperialist hegemony. They are also reminders of the horrors that nuclear weapons and even civilian nuclear disasters can cause.
In India, the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 showed us how US corporations like Union Carbide (now transformed into Dow Chemicals) violate safety laws to poison and kill Indian people. The leakage of poisonous gases caused death of thousands as well as blindness, deformities and birth defects in generations till the present. Even today the people of the affected area are forced to consume poisoned ground water.
Indian governments, in a shameful display of servility to US imperialism and corporate arrogance, continue to shield Dow Chemicals and those responsible for the Bhopal tragedy. And now, close on the heels of the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, the UPA is bringing in the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill that proposes to ensure the repeat of the shame and injustice of Bhopal.
What does the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill propose?
·  This bill will allow nuclear reactor suppliers (many of whom will be US companies) virtual freedom from having to compensate the victims in case of any disaster.
·  Further, the Government proposes to bring in private operators for the nuclear reactors  and the draft bill proposes a ridiculously low amount of Rs 500 crore as the maximum amount that the foreign or Indian private operator of a nuclear plant can be made to pay in the case of an accident. Any amount above this cap will be paid by the Government  which means the Indian taxpayer will subsidise private players responsible for nuclear disasters!
·  The cap for overall financial liability for a nuclear accident is fixed at Rs 2140 crore  an amount that is extremely low and inadequate in contrast with the scale of most nuclear accidents.
We saw in Bhopal how the victims have been shamefully cheated even of their due compensation. A nuclear disaster is likely to be far larger in scale, far more terrible than the Bhopal disaster.  Now, the Nuclear Liability Bill proposes that just as Union Carbide-Dow have evaded having to clean up the disaster site or adequately compensate the victims, nuclear reactor companies and private operators of nuclear reactors in India too will be free to loot, pollute and scoot! Clearly, this bill has been scripted to suit the interests of the US nuclear industry, at the cost of endangering the lives and health of Indian people.

On August 6th every year, democratic forces all over the world pledge never to forgive or forget the horrors of the devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This year, let us resolve to observe August 6 (Hiroshima Day) all over the country as a day of protest.

Let us tell the UPA Government
 
NO to more Hiroshimas, Nagasakis and Bhopals!
NO to protection for corporate criminals!

Stop the shameful game of jeopardizing health and human lives to protect corporate profits and imperialist interests!

Nagarjun Birth Centenary Year
Cultural Journey to Birthplace of People's Poet Nagarjun

To mark the beginning of the birth centenary year of Nagarjun, the Jankavi (People's Poet) of Hindi, Jan Sanskriti Manch organised several events in his memory.
The third State Conference of JSM's Bihar unit, held in Samastipur on 25 June with the theme 'Against the culture of loot and lies, for creativity and struggle', centred around Nagarjun.  On this occasion JSM Bihar's magazine 'Samkaleen Chunauti' was launched and its inaugural issue, dedicated to Nagarjun, was released by JSM National General Secretary Pranay Krishna.
On 26 June, a large delegation of cultural activists, writers and poets travelled from Samastipur via Darbhanga to Nagarjun's birthplace Tarauni in a cultural journey  the 'Nagarjun Janmasthali Yatra.’
At Darbhanga, a Seminar was held on 'People's Movements and Poetry' by the Nagarjun Birth Centenary Celebrations Committee, at the Hall of the Music and Drama department of the Lalit Narayan Mishra University. Addressing the Seminar, Ramji Rai, editor-in-chief of Samkaleen Janmat, said that feudal and communal blood flows in the veins of India's democracy, and Nagarjun was an uncompromising critic of this democracy. Closely associated with the peasant movement in India, he supported the 1974 movement against autocracy and was jailed for defying the Emergency. Subsequently he was disillusioned with the leadership of the 1974 movement of Jaiprakash Narayan (JP), but his commitment to people's movements was unstoppable. His epic poem 'Harijan Gatha' indicates the birth of a new revolutionary communist movement, while in his poem 'Bhojpur', he finds his dream of revolution becoming a reality in the flaming fields of Bihar, where the CPI(ML) movement was making its mark.
Pranay Krishna said Nagarjun and others were arrested under the MISA during Emergency; today the list of draconian laws in our country grows ever longer. In a sense the Emergency never ended  it continues undeclared even today, yet people's resistance continues.
Prof. Rajendra Kumar, President of JSM, Uttar Pradesh, Ramnihaal Gunjan, President, JSM Bihar, Nagarjun's eldest son Shobhakantji, Surendra Prasad 'Suman', editor of JSM Bihar's magazine Samkaleen Chunauti, journalist-poet Agnipushp also addressed the Seminar. On this occasion, a book on Nagarjun edited by Prof. Arun Kumar and Kamlanand Jha, Hoti Bas Ankhen hi Ankhen, was released by Prof. Rajendra Kumar. A statue of Baba Nagarjun sculpted by Rajesh Kumar was unveiled by Pranay Krishna. Delivering an address of thanks at the conclusion of the Seminar, CPI(ML)'s Mithilanchal in-charge, Central Committee Member Comrade Dhirendra Jha said that Nagarjun's writings and his personality will always be a source of strength and inspiration for the struggling peasants and poor of Bihar and especially of the Mithila region.
In the evening, a team of cultural activists reached Nagarjun's ancestral village, Tarauni, where they were greeted warmly by the villagers. A cultural programme took place which was enthusiastically attended by local people including a large number of women and children. JSM Begusarai's theatre group 'Rangnayak' presented a play based on 'Harijan Gatha' and 'Bhojpur.' Bhojpuri poet Krishna Kumar 'Nirmohi' sang revolutionary compositions. Santosh Jha, Samta Rai, D P Soni, Raju and Runjhun sang songs by Gorakh Pandey, Maheshwar, Vijendra Anil and Ramakant Dwivedi 'Ramta.' Arun Anjana from Bhagalpur and K S K Bharti from Purnea also sang their own compositions. Pranay Krishna and Comrade Ramji Rai addressed the people of Tarauni, telling them that Nagarjun deeply loved his homeland Mithila but also felt very deeply its feudal injustices. The struggle against those injustices was ongoing even today and would continue till a world free from injustice as dreamed by Nagarjun was brought into being.

The Nagarjun Birth Centenary Celebrations launched on these occasions will continue through the coming year and will culminate in Bhojpur next year.