CHENNAI: Revellers at the Besant Nagar beach, including a group of Americans, were taken by surprise on Sunday evening when placard-holding, pamphlet-distributing youth confronted them on the sands, seeking their signature for a memorandum against the setting up of the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tirunelveli district.The group of youth, most of whom were meeting each other for the first time, are Facebook friends. After Rajkumar Palanisamy, a young entrepreneur and activist, put out an appeal on his Facebook page, calling for his friends to join the protest against the nuclear plant and mobilised them through the networking site, they turned up with enthusiasm and set a target of collecting 1,000 signatures.The target was achieved within about three hours, during which they realised it was not easy to get people on board. Besides distributing the pamphlets that had pictures and text decrying nuclear energy, the youth spent time with each of those who disagreed with them, particularly young people, explaining why they were opposing the plant in particular and nuclear power in general, Palanisamy told Express. Though there were some who refused to play ball, many families willing signed the memorandum, which will be send to the Prime Minister with copies to Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and the protestors at Idinthakarai, he said.Even the group of Americans they met at the beach were aware of the ill-effects of nuclear power and readily signed the memorandum, he added. Apart from this ragtag group of youth, many activists are working towards mobilising support for the protest against the Koodankulam plant. At a seminar held in Loyola College’s Education department a week ago, many activists of Chennai, who had been part of the movement against Koodankulam 25 years ago, regrouped to network once again. While much has happened since the time when they first tried to create awareness about nuclear power, they found the support base for their movement swelling now.One of the activists, Mano Thangaraj, a politician from Kanyakumari district, was there at the meeting. He has been involved in various struggles against Koodankulam since 1988 and now after the stir at Idinthakarai began, he has been travelling alone across the State to mobilise popular support. He said more and more people are now turning anti-nuclear energy. “We will ensure that the plant is not commissioned with the groundswell of people’s support all over the State,” he said.
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