Wow!
How to comment on this wide-ranging discussion on the un-wisdom of Australia supplying uranium to India.
We knew that it was a bad idea - for many reasons, but Melody Kemo gives an insight informed by knowledge of Indian culture and history.

What a pity that Australia, being a cultural suburb of Los Angeles, usually gets only brief sound-bites of news and information on current affairs.

So – we are so very vulnerable to “Lies, damned lies and nuclear salesmen”
Fortunately there are many in India who also view the nuclear hype with justifiable suspicion – as the US attempts to foist upon India the nuclear technology that US citizens don’t want.

So - the "nuclear renaissance" fairy tale is not yet factual. My bet is that it will indeed be a nuclear still-birth - not from any reasons of morality, health, war dangers etc, but just from the good old money factor - nuclear power's astronomic cost.
Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

Bravo!
It shows how complex the question of nuclear power really is, and yes how it very much associaed with the "culture" of death which now mis-rules this world---brought to the entire planet courtesy of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about over 50 years ago.

But I guess Mr Zippy had the last and best advice with his famous rallying call:
Are We Having Fun Yet? 1. http://www.zippythepinhead.com

And Mr Natural was also making fun of the deadly nuclear fathers years ago too: 2. http://www.rcrumb.com

It's a bit rich for people from wealthy countries to dispense wisdom on why poor people should not elevate themselves.

I suspect the sickness of the people near the mine site was chemical, not radiation induced. It seems to me India is in a dilemma with more people aspiring to the middle class at the same time as environmental problems such as reduced inflow to snow fed rivers. Somehow I don't think those who have upgraded from a threadbare lifestyle want to return to it. The thorium breeder reactor could be their best, perhaps only hope of sustaining a majority class which is frugal but with a few luxuries. If possible Australia should assist that goal.

In the third world hundreds of thousands of workers have died from work related illnesses as they used to do in the beginning of the industrial revolution in Europe. You could replace uranium with coal, steel, etc. By this logic all industry should be stopped in the third world, and they can return to their pre industrial serenity and destitution.

The rest of the article is an emotional / religious outburst without much substance.

Taswegian, “It's a bit rich for people from wealthy countries to dispense wisdom on why poor people should not elevate themselves.” About a decade ago there were some 16 million Indian nationals with $US millionaire status.

Millions - sixteen, out of eight hundred. With the wealthy sector of their society getting wealthier at a rate better than ten per cent per annum, it is reasonable to expect that there are now more millionaires in India as there are people in Australia.

Ah yes, heaven help the other seven hundred million plus – enormous numbers of whom are still desperately hoping for an upgrade from threadbare lifestyles. There is little likelihood that a thorium breeder reactor would be of much benefit to these within their own lifetimes. In another generation, after the spending of billions of Government rupees, those who are already affluent may gain some benefit from the exercise. But only if the optimistic designers achieve sufficient preferential funding, and all developments continuously run more smoothly than ever before.
“If possible Australia should assist that goal”.
By exporting re-processed “hot” beach-sand residue upon which Byron Bay holiday developments presently toast their feet? Recapture for the Indians that under-floor monazite which was concentrated and discarded while processing beach dunes for ilmenite, rutile, and zircon? Revisit and reprocess the old alluvial tin-mining tailings in north Queensland; or Start sand mining afresh?
Monazite varies in its thorium content, and Queensland’s north-east and north-west seem to have the best prospects. But India has no shortage of monazite-rich beach sands especially rich in thoria, even up to 14 per cent.
There is no pot of gold at the end of their, or anyone else's, nuclear rainbow. It is sad that so many are prepared to do a Faustian bargain in attempts to find it.

Its not often that I am tempted to respond to comments, but it seems like Taswegian and Shadow Minister, have parsed the article but missed the point.

No, the contamination is not caused by chemicals. Thank you for your condescention. For 20 years I have worked in OHS in Asia and know data's been collected over a period of 8 plus years. The failure to act was one reason prompting Sreedhar's resignation. He now heads up mines mineral and People (capitalisation deliberate to emphasise the importance of the community in policy and activities) (www.mmpindia.org).
The people effected are tribal farmers not industrial workers. Ethnic minorities are generally marginalised throughout the world-including in Australia. If it was chemicals, it still warrants investigation.

The majority of poor in the third world are rural farmers..they get energy from mini hydros, solar or simply stealing it from tapping into the cables supplying the affluent enclaves as they do outside my house in Vientiane.
They do not have appliances or aircondioners that warrant vast energy sources. The article points out that India will most likely use the uranium for war (let's drop the fig leaf of defence). If they had wanted to, they could have built reactors ages ago using domestic uranium.

Large energy programs benefit the already wealthy, not the poor who suffer the 'fallout' from land sequestration for development (aid-awareness@aidindia.org), and the taxation burden of having to pay for them, not having tax lawyers or cronies in high places.

Nukes divert attention from suitable alternatives, energy conservation or questioning the slavish obeisance to growth economics.

Shadow Minister, I am not sure what you are getting at. If you look at www.anroav.org (of which I am a member) you will see that Asians are organising against industrial illness and accidents with greater ferocity than in Australia.

As for emotions, that is a tired old furphy. Emotions are where we make our decisions and where out ethics are based. Australia has been increasingly stripped of passion in politics. Look what had happened.