India's Nuclear Ambitions: Who Pays the Price?

Featuring a Film Screening of
Buddha Weeps in Jadugoda (1999)

Followed by a discussion with
Shriprakash (director of the film)
Ghanshyam Birulee and Dumka Murmu - grassroots organizers with JOAR (Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation)

India's emergence in the nuclear energy and nuclear weapons arena comes at a colossal human cost. Jadugoda, a tribal town in a mineral-rich belt in Jharkhand State, is the only source of Uranium in India, and the indigenous people of Jadugoda have been paying with their lives - seeing their community's health destroyed, their environment devastated. To resist the occupation and devastation of their land by uranium mining, the people of Jadugoda have organized themselves as JOAR - Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation, and their demands range from better safety measures against radiation, to protection of their environment, to opposition of planned open-cast uranium mines.

The film screening will be followed by discussion with the activists, including a brief history of the struggle, some of the successes they've had, and the challenges facing them. Discussion will also include nuclearization in India/South Asia and its dangers; the problems with nuclear arms and nuclear energy; Indian/Indian-American opposition to the US-India nuclear deal and a report about the just-concluded Indigenous World Uranium Summit. The title of the film is a twist on the term "Operation Buddha Smiling,” the code name for the first nuclear tests conducted by India in 1974. The film was selected best film at EARTH VISION - The Tokyo Global Environmental Film Festival 2000.

The event is free and open to all. Tax deductible contributions to support the work of JOAR(Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation) will be welcomed at the event. Presented by Resource Center for Nonviolence, Jharkhandi Organization Against Radiation and Friends of South Asia