Curative plea filed in Supreme Court on anniversary of tragedy Coinciding with the anniversary of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Centre on Friday filed a curative petition seeking enhancement of the compensation of $ 470 million determined by the Supreme Court in 1989 on the ground that this settlement was arrived at on the basis of assumptions of truth unrelated to realities. The Centre as parens patriae (parent of the...

Twenty-six years after the Bhopal gas disaster left the city devastated, the victims continue to be plagued with a host of problems with no solution in sight. As the city observes the anniversary of the disaster today, the victims feel they have little to look forward to. Abdul Jabbar, convenor of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangthan, the first and the biggest organisation working for the disaster victims, told PTI that...

For past several weeks, thousands of farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand have been left in the lurch. They had planted urd and til crops in a large acreage, and to their dismay no grain formation took place in the standing crop. Unable to bear the economic loss, at least four farmers have reportedly committed suicide. Thousands of farmers have been pushed deeper into economic distress....

As late as 2008, about 23 years after the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the state government was still involved in virtual subterfuge. Taking advantage of a curfew imposed in Indore, which was reeling under communal riots in July-August that year, the government smuggled out 40 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory to an incinerator 230 km away at a site in Pithampur. Apologising for the government's action, Union...

The fraught issue of introduction of Bt Brinjal has been shelved but all eyes are now set on the controversial Seed Bill 2010, likely to be tabled in the monsoon session of Parliament beginning July 26. The bill aims to regulate the quality of seeds for sale, import and export and to facilitate production and supply of seeds of quality, but fails to address a crucial issue — seed pricing....