Defence Beyond Design: Contours of India's Nuclear Safety and Security

Contents: Preface. Introduction. 1. Safety-security-safeguards: the intricate interface. 2. Civil nuclear network: a reality check. 3. Sitting of nuclear power plants: modus operandi. 4. Contours of nuclear safety: defence in-depth. 5. Security of nuclear facilities: the envelope. 6. Waste management: a Gordian knot? 7. Social acceptance fuss: a challenging opportunity. 8. Post-fukushima discourse: let’s not feed political panic. 9 Defence beyond design: towards a new paradigm. This book scrutinises the realm of safety-security involving ‘nuclear power’ within the context of India’s tryst with nuclear energy. Relying on open source information, it examines the efficacy of the safety-security arrangement in and around India’s nuclear installations, keeping in mind the international best practices. As India has embarked on a civil nuclear expansion programme, the public concern for safety and security of nuclear facilities and material is obvious, especially in the backdrop of terrorist incidents and the Fukushima disaster. This poses a serious challenge to garnering greater domestic support for new nuclear projects with international collaborations. Here an attempt is made to examine the issues involving social acceptance of nuclear energy, safe disposal of nuclear waste, regulatory practices, and likely challenges ahead for India, to propose a new nuclear safety-security paradigm by looking beyond the usual ‘defence by design’ or ‘defence in-depth’ practice.…