Kudankulam

News in Brief by PN staff

Over 700 boats laid 'siege' to the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, India on 8 October, in the latest demonstration by the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE; for background, see PN 2550).

PMANE is demanding the withdrawal of police from local villages (police killed one protester in September), the release of arrested demonstrators and the dropping of false cases against campaigners.

Meanwhile, on 11 October, a 60,000-strong march of dalit ('untouchable') and tribal people succeeded in pressurising the Indian government into publicly supporting land reform measures for dalits, tribal people and 'all other weaker and marginalised sections of society'.

The 200-mile 'Jan Satyagraha', organised by land rights movement Ekta Parishad, was modelled on Gandhi's salt march of 1930.