The Bharatiya Janata Party has sought an un-conditional apology from the Congress for misleading the country on the facts of Bhopal gas tragedy. Worse, the party said, the Congress is dubbing anyone who spoke against former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as "anti-national and unpatriotic.
A complaint has been filed in a local court here for registration of a criminal case against former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh for allegedly releasing the then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson in a wrong manner after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
A top aide of Rajiv Gandhi spoke in contradictory voices about the Bhopal gas tragedy, first ruling out the late prime minister's involvement in the sudden release of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson and later hinting that he may have had a role.
The trial court in the Bhopal gas tragedy case has held the owners of the Union Carbide pesticide plant, the Indian government and 'to some extent' the government of Madhya Pradesh responsible for the magnitude of the disaster. "The problem was worsened by the plant's location near a densely populated area, non-existent catastrophe plans and shortcomings in health care and socio-economic rehabilitation," said the judgment delivered by Chief Judicial Magistrate Mohan P Tiwari.
With the June 7 Bhopal judgment, India has been reduced to a Fourth World country. This story of shame can only end if the government appeals against the judgment, gets proper criminal liability restored and seriously pursues the case against all the accused.
Amid questions over how the then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson fled India, the central government said on Thursday that the group of ministers set up on the Bhopal gas tragedy issue will look into all aspects related to the incident and facts would be presented before the nation.
After a trial lasting more than two decades, the judgement on Bhopal Gas tragedy, the world's worst industrial disaster which killed and maimed thousands of people, would be pronounced on Monday.
Twenty-six years after one of the worst industrial disasters, Bhopal Gas Tragedy, which claimed thousands of lives occurred, a local court trying the case would pronounce its verdict on June 7.
Victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, described as one of the world's worst-ever industrial disasters, have filed a Right to Information petition with the prime minister's office in New Delhi.The RTI plea wants to know whether the Central government took into consideration the disaster of gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal in 1984 while drafting the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill with the United States.
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Union Carbide Corporation, Dow Chemicals and others on a Centre's plea seeking enhancement of compensation to the victims of 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy from Rs 750 crore to Rs 7,700 crore.
A day ahead of the crucial General Body Meeting of the Indian Olympic Association on the controversial Dow Chemicals issue, its acting president VK Malhotra, on Wednesday, demanded the company to be removed from being one of the sponsors of the 2012 London Games.
Government on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking enhancement of compensation from Rs 750 crore to Rs 7,700 crore for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in which more than 5,000 people were killed due to leakage of poisonous gas from the Union Carbide factory.
Its been 25 years since the world's worst industrial and environment disaster ever -- the Bhopal gas tragedy -- claimed scores of lives. However, there seems to be no end to the victims' woes.
Victims of the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy on Saturday held a demonstration protesting United States President Barack Obama's India visit and sought to know why he and his predecessors kept mum on the world's biggest industrial disaster.
Dow Chemical Company is once bitten, twice shy. Close on the heels of its US parent's move to deny liability for damages resulting from the Bhopal gas tragedy at a plant run by Union Carbide (a company it had bought), Dow India has called off a greenfield project to establish a research & development facility in Maharashtra.
Picking holes in the statement of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh on Union Carbide Corporation CEO Warren Anderson's exit from India after the Bhopal gas tragedy, the Bharatiya Janata Party asked the government and Congress to come clear on the issue on Thursday.
The government on Thursday said there were no records of calls made by home ministry officials before the exit of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson from India in December, 1984 and on the 'safe passage' assurance reportedly given to him. A day after Congress leader Arjun Singh sought to point fingers at P V Narasimha Rao for the exit of Anderson, an accused in the Bhopal gas disaster case, Home Minister P Chidambaram also gave a clean chit to Rajiv Gandhi.
Congress leader Arjun Singh finally broke his silence over the Bhopal gas tragedy on Wednesday during a rare appearance in the Rajya Sabha. The septuagenarian leader, who was the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh when the Bhopal gas tragedy took place, arrived in a wheel chair soon after Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ravi Shankar Prasad initiated a discussion on the issue. "I felt that Union Carbide CEO) Warren Anderson should be arrested," he said.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Monday said a commission will be formed to look into all aspects of the Bhopal gas tragedy to ensure that the guilty are punished and victims get adequate compensation. He said his government will ensure that the truth comes to the fore. The victims have not received justice even after 25 years of the tragedy, Chouhan said. Chouhan said that since 1980, a number of industrial accidents took place in the factory.
Former Union Carbide India chairman Keshub Mahindra and four others, who were convicted on June 7 in the Bhopal gas leak case, were on Tuesday granted bail by a local court. UCIL former managing director Vijay Gokhle, former vice president Kishore Kamdar, former works manager J Mukund and former production manager S P Choudhry were granted bail by Chief Judicial Magistrate R V Singh.
What is needed is dharma or good faith among both companies and officials to limit harm. Regulators should also remember that costs forced on companies become higher costs for consumers, says Gurcharan Das
Veteran Congress leader Arjun Singh who was Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister at the time of the Bhopal gas disaster in December 1984 today said he would give "appropriate reply at an appropriate time" on the issue.
If the Bhopal judgment results in independent directors and CEOs/plant managers waking up to their responsibilities, that can only be a good thing.
Maharaja Krishna Rasgotra, was India's foreign secretary at the time of the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984. speaks on whether Union Carbide Corporation chief Warren Anderson asked for and received safe passage, and did Anderson meet senior officials of the government of India while he was in the country.
In the midst of the political storm over the Bhopal tragedy case verdict, the records of the trial court show that the Central Bureau of Investigation had sought the dilution of the stringent charges against Union Carbide Corporation's Chief Executive Officer Warren Anderson, on the lines of the relief given by the Supreme Court in the case against the Indian accused.
As the prime minister asked the Group of Ministers on Bhopal tragedy to meet immediately, Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who is a member of the GoM, said on Monday that the panel can probe under what circumstances the industrial disaster took place and how the punishment for the culprits was reduced.
Battling charges over escape of Warren Anderson days after the Bhopal tragedy, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday sought to give a new spin on the issue, saying Arjun Singh took the decision on then Union Carbide chief executive officer's exit keeping in view the law and order situation.
The United States said on Friday that it would "carefully evaluate" any request from India to bring to justice Warren Anderson, the former CEO of Union Carbide, who is wanted in a case related to the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy that killed several thousands of people. "...if the government of India makes such a request of us, we will carefully evaluate it," State Department spokesman P J Crowley, told reporters in response to a question.
The attack over the escape of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson on Friday appeared to be zeroing in on the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh, with Congress leaders Digvijay Singh and R K Dhawan demanding an answer from the veteran leader.
'Arjun Singh was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh back in 1984. He is still on Indian soil, and, presumably, available for questioning.'
Gas affected areas in Bhopal are still bereft of basic amenities.
Photojournalist Chandu Mhatre, one of the first to reach Bhopal after India's worst industrial disaster ravaged the city, remembers his worst seven days, in a conversation with Vaihayasi Pande Daniel/Rediff.com.
The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up the Centre for not being serious on disposal of toxic waste lying in the defunct Union Carbide India Ltd plant, now represented by DOW Chemical Company, in Bhopal for the last 28 years and asked it to take a final decision on it soon.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, Madhya Pradesh government has decided to throw open for public the defunct Union carbide factory that claimed thousands of lives following leakage of toxic gases.
Away from the courtroom and legal circles, Nariman was a familiar figure for residents of Hauz Khas who would see him walk regularly, even in the cold winter months of December and January.
The mystery about who facilitated the escape of Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson's from the country after the Bhopal gas tragedy may never be solved.
Dr Singh told media persons accompanying him on his way back home from Toronto that he did not raise the issue in his discussions with US President Barack Obama during his meeting with him on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit.
Senior Congress leader Arjun Singh, who is in the eye of a storm over the issue of safe passage given to the then Union Carbide Corporation chairman Warren Anderson in the wake of the Bhopal gas tragedy, has sought to lob the ball in the Centre's court and the party declined to join issue.
The Anderson issue showed no signs of abating on Friday with P V Narasimha Rao's son Ranga Rao suggesting that his father would not have taken a decision on his own about granting 'safe passage' to the Union Carbide chief a few days after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.
"If I go there at all, I would be addressing the (US-India) CEOs meeting and also have some bilateral meetings with Treasury officials. I do not know of any other meeting. I do not know from where these things come," he told media persons in Ahmedabad when asked about reports about his plans to meet with Dow Chemicals CEO Andrew Liveris in the US.
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