Indian traditions followed religiously in ITER project

Cadarache: The upcoming $25 billion plasma-based fusion reactor ITER, to which India is one of the partner nations, religiously follows Indian traditions and rituals too. In the cryostat workshop, where the India-procured component is being assembled and welded, ITER Director-General Bernard Bigot, India's Ambassador to France Vinay Mohan Kwatra and former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission of India Anil Kakodkar on Tuesday symbolically smashed a bottle of French champagne on a large chunk of steel representing the ITER cryostat. Bigot told IANS that the French naval tradition of smashing a bottle of champagne on the hull of a seafaring vessel exceptionally and temporarily replaced the Indian ''coconut breaking'' ceremony that the cryostat workshop has often witnessed. It is also a highly complex structure which must remain absolutely leak proof despite hundreds of "penetrations" that give passage to thousands of lines for cryogenics, water, electrical power, diagnostics systems and more, said the ITER.