Koodankulam issue: PMANE wants fresh round of talks with Jayalalithaa

Attempting to revive their dialogue with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa over Koodankulam Nuclear Power Project issue, anti-nuclear activists Monday expressed their willingness to initiate a "fresh round" of talks with her.Activists of the People?s Movement Against Nuclear Energy in an open letter to the Chief Minister said, "..As we have completed a whole year struggling against the KNPP, we would like to initiate a fresh round of dialogue with you."Requesting her to "turn the KNPP into a pro-people and nature-friendly project, bring about solar power policy and projects all over the state," the activists said they were looking forward to "favorable actions" from her.PMANE activists, including S P Udayakumar, M Pushparayan, and Fr F Jayakumar, made the request.Jayalalithaa had Sunday renewed her demand to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that the Centre allot the entire 1000 MW to be generated from the first unit of Koodankulam Nuclear Power Plant to the state, and hoped for a "quick response."In a letter to Singh, she recalled her previous communications to him on the issue and pointed out that there was no response to her letters.The Atomic Energy Regulatory Board had recently given its approval for loading the real fuel in the first reactor of Nuclear Plant, taking the controversy-hit project a step closer to commissioning.The commissioning of the first of the 2x1000 MW units of the Indo-Russian project in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district was slated for December last year but protests by local people, spearheaded by PMANE, on grounds of safety concerns delayed it.