by Dhirendra Sharma
Today, Science, Technology and Society (STS) have become complex and costly
inter-depended entities. The boundaries of physical nature and the complexities of post-modern technical devices no more remain limited to the 19th century departments of physics and chemistry. Interdisciplinary research - involving two, three or more science departments - requires technology - electronics, e.g., and observational tools, and research procedures - data collection, testing and analysis.  Boundaries of, both, Science and Technology have now changed so much that no one knowledge entity can advance in isolation.
It is, therefore, imperative that the Science and Public Policy decision makers, legislators-law makers – and the general public to be better informed about the decision making procedure. The citizens should know the roadmap to futuristic advances in the ST and Society.  The policy makers and general public – the leaders and the preachers – should be made aware of the STS paradigms.
The Indian government had, recently, e.g., placed orders for the US nuclear reactors, nuclear equipment and material worth $ 150 billion. This long-term big deal was done without due clearance of Reserve Bank of India, and without engineering and technical assessment of old American reactors.  During his recent visit to Washington, our Prime Minister‘s Special Envoy Shyam Saran disclosed that with the deal, the US companies would benefit for decades by bagging a huge chunk of Indian defence hardware purchases. The Indian envoy was insisting on New Delhi’s readiness to buy the US reactors, totaling 10,000 MW capacity.
As President Obama is committed to stopping the nuclear arms race and India has not signed the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The apprehension is that the deal signed with the Bush administration may not work. Moreover, India would like to exercise its right to reprocess the US origin spent fuel, whereas the US enjoys the end-use monitoring rights of all nuclear material sold to India.  In case India processes the spent fuel for non-peaceful purposes, Washington is mostly likely to stop supply of the fuel. Besides, the concerned scientists have confirmed that the Atoms for Peace and the Atoms for War are the Siamese twins that cannot be separated. There is no denial that the peaceful nuclear programme had served as a cover for Indian weapons programme. For this reason, secrecy and non-accountability governs the nuclear affairs. As high as 40 percent of Research and Development funds are diverted to militarisation of science.  According to the official reports, (1995-2000), the Department of Atomic Energy received an average of 15-30 percent of National Research and Development grants. The official documents do not disclose the “Black Funds” that are available to undisclosed nuclear weapons and war-science programmes. In contrast, the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) received 0.1 percent of National Scientific Research funds (R&D Statistics, 2000-2001).
Pro-nuclear pandits have, however, claimed that the N-power programme is now a peaceful civil industrial activity, eco-friendly, and necessary for the country’s energy requirement for futuristic development. Also, that the engineering of nuclear reactors had reached high levels of safety of “one in a millionth” chance of an accident or radiation leaks. If that were the case, our  civic administration and population around nuclear establishments should be provided with possible risks warnings and as with normal industrial activities, the public should be provided with adequate insurance coverage against radiation damage and  injury. Radiation accidents should be covered in Insurance Policies. Presently, all Insurance Policies carry a special “exclusion” clause that the policy excludes any radiation damage to life and property.
Science and Public Policy principles cannot and must not be ignored in formulating the nuclear power policy. Political expediency, and narrow chauvinistic aspirations to have the Bombs must not be the basis of Science policy. We do not doubt the high calibre of the Indian scientists and engineers engaged in our national nuclear energy programmes.  But, the fission process suffers from genuine technological infirmities resulting from radiation and there is no fail-safe reactor system to guarantee absolute safety for our oncoming generations. Notwithstanding the Right to Information Act, the Department of Atomic Energy is free from any public and parliamentary scrutiny.
In the US, the regulatory authority is an independent commission with full powers to regulate the entire nuclear activities in that country. But in our country, the Atomic Energy Act 1962, gives the legal authority to confirm a radiation leak to the Regulatory Board, which is subordinate to the Department of Atomic Energy. The Regulatory Board, therefore, cannot visit or inspect any reactor or radiation zone without permission from the Atomic Energy Commission. There is no constitutional protection for a whistleblower or informer who dares to report any radiation leaks or nuclear accident. 
Concerned scientists’ opposition to nuclear power primarily centres on how and how soon N-technology can resolve problem of waste disposal. Sufficient scientific data exists to indicate potential biological hazards from actinides, including potential genetic effects of exposure and high probability of migration of radioactivity through the food chain.
In discussing advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power, therefore, it is incumbent on us discuss its cost-benefits, and the social and political implications.
The technical problems of de-commissioning of dead reactors and the long-term waste storage cannot be ignored. For, to keep the large amount of radioactive waste material would require well-organised and properly trained human resources to guard the entombed reactors and the waste disposal sites, for hundreds of years extending up to 25,000 years. But, we do not know what kind of social, economic and political organisation or agencies would be required for maintenance of the decommissioned reactors, which will have no utility for any civic society. And no government is likely to divest millions of funds for the protection of useless burial sites of nuclear wastes. Therefore, no new nuclear reactor is now made in the USA.
It was in 20th century that Nuclear Power was considered Currency of Power but in the 21st century, Space Age it is Nano-Science and Engineering.
(Dr Dhirendra Sharma, Convener of the Indian Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (COSNUP) is  Director of the Centre for Science Policy Research,
Dehradun-248009. (0135) 2735627. psand@vsnl.net (www.psaindia.org).