Latest news with #TNRC
The Hindu
03-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Tamil Nadu Rainbow Coalition criticises Thol. Thirumavalavan's remarks on same-sex love
The Tamil Nadu Rainbow Coalition (TNRC), a network of groups from the sexual and gender minority communities, on Wednesday (July 2, 2025) urged Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK) founder and Chidambaram MP Thol. Thirumavalavan to 'reflect on the immense harm caused by his statement' against the LGBTQIA+ community recently. In a video clip that has gone viral, a youngster, during an event, seeks Mr. Thirumavalavan's views on same-sex love, to which he responds that it is a form of 'perversion'. The TNRC, in a statement, said that 'modern science and medicine have established, beyond doubt, that homosexuality is neither unnatural nor a disorder.' 'In 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO) removed homosexuality from the Interntational Classification of Disorders (ICD) and the understanding of homosexuality as a natural variation of human sexuality has been reiterated by the Indian Psychiatric Society and other professional medical associations. Further, Indian jurisprudence, dating back to the Delhi High Court (2009) and Supreme Court (2018), has reiterated that queer desire in natural and is not criminal so long as the individuals involved are adults engaged in consensual acts,' the statement said. The statement further said, 'Given this context, it is truly disappointing that individuals such as Thiruma, whose life's mission is rooted in eradicating social injustice, hold such inaccurate, outdated, and damaging views of lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, and other queer persons. Equating the love and relationships of these and other sexual minority individuals to 'perversion' reinforces stigma, fuels discrimination, and directly contributes to the violence and alienation faced by queer people in Tamil Nadu and across India.' The TNRC urged Mr. Thirumavalavan to make efforts to examine his biases, and 'lead VCK by example towards a more inclusive and equitable world view.'
Time of India
24-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
How the US gave Iran its first nuclear kit 72 years ago, and then MIT trained its scientists
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel United States has hammered Iran's nuclear sites in unprecedented airstrikes earlier last week. President Donald Trump said US air strikes on Sunday had "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities, and warned of more attacks to come if Tehran does not seek how and when did Iran came to posess its nuclear starter kit first? Few recall that it was the US itself that first helped Iran build its nuclear foundation—over seven decades roots of Iran's nuclear journey go back to 1957, when the US and Iran signed a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement under President Eisenhower's 'Atoms for Peace' program. This initiative aimed to promote peaceful nuclear energy, and Iran—then ruled by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—was among its early US provided Iran with its first nuclear research reactor in 1967 at the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC), along with highly enriched uranium. The reactor was capable of producing small quantities of plutonium. According to Akbar Etemad, Iran's "father of nuclear energy," the TNRC conducted experiments with plutonium extraction, and in the 1990s, Iran admitted using the reactor to produce Polonium-210—a substance that can trigger nuclear chain reactions, though Iran insisted it was for civilian build technical expertise, Iran partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1975 to train nuclear engineers. The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) was also created to oversee this expansion. By 1976, the Shah raised the AEOI's budget from $31 million to $1 billion, signaling serious the 1979 Iranian Revolution ended US-Iran nuclear cooperation. Even so, Iran found new partners. Pakistan's AQ Khan provided designs and components for uranium enrichment centrifuges (P-1 and P-2 models), while China secretly supplied uranium compounds, reactors, and isotope separation tech in the early '90s. China's contributions, especially to the Esfahan Nuclear Center, further advanced Iran's also played a key role by aiding the construction of the Arak Heavy Water Reactor. Russian firms shared fuel rod technology and reactor designs, based on Cold War-era Soviet models. Though Moscow halted cooperation in the late 1990s under US pressure, the foundation had been began as a peaceful science exchange with the US in the 1950s has evolved—decades later—into one of the most contentious nuclear programs in the world.
