'Nuclear A-B-C' for chilren on 30th anniversary of Indo-Russian n-coop

The 30th anniversary of the start of Indo-Russian cooperation in nuclear energy was marked here on Thursday with the launch of the "Nuclear A-B-C" booklet for chilren designed to create awareness about the power of the atomic particle.

The "nuclear alphabet" in Hindi, English and Russian, published by the Russian atomic energy corporation Rosatom, was released at the Festival of Science here being organised by the state-run company during February 6-9 in various schools both in India and Russia. As part of these events, experts have been invited to give presentations and have interactive sessions with children towards nurturing an interest in nuclear physics.

Addressing the gathering mostly composed of Delhi school students, and which included the Russian Ambassador Nikolai Kudashev, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University R. Rajaraman described the book as another instance of the rich history of Indo-Russian scientific cooperation dating back to the Soviet Union times.

"Even before the NSG (Nuclear Suppliers Group) lifted their sanctions on India, Russia was helping with India's civil nuclear energy programme via the 'grandfathering' mechanism," Rajaraman said, noting that the first two 1,000 MW units of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu are already operational, while work has started on construction of units 3 and 4.

"The units 3 and 4 at Kudankulam are slated to be ready by 2023-24," he said.

The Russian Ambassador lauded the exercise to explain the "nucleus of the universe...its atomic structure" in simple language for the understanding of children.

"As we know, nuclear power can also have dangerous applications," he said pointing to the military uses of a technology that also provides fuel for the clean generation of electricity.

"We, therefore, need to be faithful citizens in order to further Russia-India collaboration in matter that contains the mysterious code of the universe," Kudashev added.

--IANS

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