BRATTLEBORO — Nuclear engineer-turned-environmentalist Pradeep Indulkar will be in Brattleboro to show his film “High Power” on Wednesday, Feb. 5, at 7 p.m., at the Brattleboro Food Co-op Community Room.
“High Power,” a 27-minute documentary about the health issues faced by residents of Tarapur, a town in Maharashtra, and home to the 50-year-old Tarapur nuclear power plant, recently won the “Yellow Oscar” in the short film category in the Rio de Janeiro leg of the Uranium Film Festival (www.uraniumfilmfestival.org).
“The government was showing a very rosy picture of Tarapur on TV, so a few of us thought of going there and interviewing the people,” says Indulkar. “That material was very strong; people were talking from their heart, and instead of showing it on a news channel, I thought it could be made into a documentary.”
After the film, Indulkar will describe the passionate anti-nuclear movement in India and the movement's request for support from the global anti-nuclear movement, particularly from those countries whose nuclear industries are building plants in India.
Indulkar's film tour occurs as the United States is agreeing to a deal in which India buys six nuclear power plants from Westinghouse. That's a boon for the industry that organizers of the screening say in a press release “is going bust here.”
India reprocesses nuclear power waste into nuclear weapons and, thus, more nuclear power translates into greater weapons capability. The U.S.-India agreement will require that India accept liability in case of a nuclear accident, which undermines the post-Bhopal Indian law that placed liability on the shoulders of the industry selling the equipment, the press release reads in part.