nuclear-news

India’s democracy disappearing under nuclear lobby pressure?

‘The fact that the government is going to the extent of cancelling legitimately granted visas clearly shows that they don’t want people from Japan to come to India and share their experience’ said Karuna Raina of the green group. Kobayashi helped save children from
radiation as part of a network of local mothers……

Scared India denies visa to nuclear activist and Fukushima disaster survivor Mail Online India, By DINESH C SHARMA, 7th March 2012 ‘We are a democracy, we are not like China’. Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh professed while making his ‘foreign hand behind nuclear protests’ remark recently.
However, actions of his government show that India is behaving much like China when it comes to muzzling dissent. The latest example of the government’s intolerant behaviour is denying a survivor of Fukushima disaster from visiting nuclear protest hotspots in India on the eve of the first anniversary of the Japanese nuclear accident on March 11.

Earlier this year, a Danish documentary maker was denied visa to visit India for having made a critical film on textile industry in the past.
Maya Kobayashi, a resident of Fukushima, was scheduled to visit at the
invitation of Greenpeace India and share her experiences with local
communities in Jaitapur and Kudankulam.
However, she was informed last week that the visa had been canceled.
‘Your application for business visa does not match with the stated
purpose of your proposed visit to India’, Sanjay Panda, deputy chief
of Indian mission in Tokyo informed Kobayashi in a letter on March 3.
Greenpeace officials in India said there was no misrepresentation because the visa was issued on the basis of invitation letter sent by Greenpeace which had clearly mentioned that she would be interacting with certain communities.
Kobayashi’s visit was part of an international initiative of the green
lobby which had arranged for Fukushima survivors to visit a dozen
countries all over.
‘The fact that the government is going to the extent of cancelling legitimately granted visas clearly shows that they don’t want people from Japan to come to India and share their experience’ said Karuna Raina of the green group. Kobayashi helped save children from
radiation as part of a network of local mothers……
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/indianews/article-2111736/Scared-India-denies-visa-nuclear-activist-Fukushima-disaster-survivor.html#ixzz1oZ0M6OkB

March 8, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | civil liberties, India