Bhopal cast a pall on Singur today, fed by a cocktail of pollution, panic and politics. A chemical factory, declared a “fit case for closure” by the state pollution control board (PCB) two months ago, spewed carbon soot-laced smoke this dawn. The plant belongs to Himadri Chemicals and Industries, a company with an annual turnover of over Rs 500 crore and said to be the country’s largest manufacturer of coal tar...

The Bhopal judgment suggests that were a nuclear disaster to be caused by an operator's negligence, they might be held criminally liable for little more than a traffic accident. The world was watching a trial court in Bhopal on Monday, as the Chief Judicial Magistrate ruled on the criminal responsibility for the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in 1984. Twenty six years after the event, 178 prosecution witnesses...

The India growth story is enviable. Despite plaguing problems, India has emerged stronger and resilient to the global crisis so far. India is expected to be the world's fastest growing economy by 2018, according to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research arm of the Economist magazine. India, the second largest growing economy will overtake China as the fastest growing major economy with an average of eight per cent in the...

A court in the Indian city of Bhopal has sentenced eight people to two years each in jail over a gas plant leak that killed thousands of people in 1984. The convictions are the first since the disaster at the Union Carbide plant - the world's worst industrial accident. The eight Indians, all former plant employees, were convicted of "death by negligence". One had already died - the others are expected...

The 23-year-old criminal trial of the Bhopal gas tragedy will see the verdict delivered on Monday, but survivors fear the “glaring omissions” by prosecuting agency CBI may deny them justice. Several Indian officials of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) will be in court on June 7 as the accused in one of the country’s longest criminal cases. But missing will be all the foreign accused, including the then chairman of the...