In this video, Newclick discusses the liability regime put in place in India to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear incident. Despite recent reports extolling the virtues of India's foreign policy in having succesfully stood up to US demands to further weaken our liability regime, the recently notified Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Rules, 2011, appear to derogate substantially from the (already limited) safeguards put in place by the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010. Prabir Purkayastha highlights the various shortcomings of the Rules (ranging from severely limiting the right to recourse to introducing a new and uber-paternalistic model of compensation adjudication), as also the logic behind having limited liability in particular in view of the recent Fukushima disaster and protests regarding the Kudankulam nuclear plant in Tamil Nadu.
