What’s happened today in Bhopal is worse than what happened in 1984,” says a furious Syed M. Irfan, convenor of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, referring to Monday’s verdict by a Bhopal court. Twenty-six years after the gas tragedy, just when time was beginning to heal the wounds, the scars have been reopened. The city’s residents, from those directly affected by the disaster to activists and even past...

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...

Twenty-five years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the biggest industrial disasters in history, the country’s pollution watchdog has found huge quantities of chemicals in underground water and soil in a 2.4-km radius of the Union Carbide factory.  During a study of 390 tonnes of toxins abandoned in the now-closed factory, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) discovered high levels of chloroform and benzene in underground water, mostly near...

The world’s biggest industrial disaster took place in Bhopal on December 3, 1984 taking a toll of 20,000 lives and affecting 5.69 lakh people. The twentyfifth anniversary of that massive mishap at the Union Carbide plant in the city is being observed across the country today. That disaster is a crying shame for all our citizens. Why? For three reasons. First, the real culprit behind the mishap, the Union Carbide management,...

Worthies such as Ratan Tata who have been lobbying the government to go easy on Union Carbide Corporation (http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/5_27.pdf) would do well to read Carbide’s useful FAQs on the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, which claimed over 10,000 lives. Worse, over 5 lakh humans, including those born after the disaster, are still suffering the consequences of the gas leak. Even now, Carbide refuses to accept any kind of...