Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power.  Over 20,000 killed. Over half a million victims maimed, disabled or otherwise affected. Compensation of around Rs.12,414 per victim on average on the 1989 value of the rupee. ($470 million or Rs.713 crore. And that divided among 574,367 victims.) Over a quarter-of-a-century's wait. To see seven former officials of Union Carbide...

India lives in its villages, Gandhi said. But increasingly, the people of India are dying on its roads. India overtook China to top the world in road fatalities in 2006 and has continued to pull steadily ahead, despite a heavily agrarian population, fewer people than China and far fewer cars than many Western countries. While road deaths in many other big emerging markets have declined or stabilized in recent years,...

The Right to Education, in effect since April 1, is set to cost the Centre a staggering 2,31,000 crore over the next five years according to fresh estimates. Previous estimates drawn up by National University of Education Planning & Administration (NUEPA) — the basis of financial planning for the RTE’s provisions so far — had pegged the requirement at Rs 1,71,000 crore. In a note submitted to the Expenditure Finance...

The Indian press has expressed outrage at the sentences handed down to Union Carbide employees found guilty of negligence over the gas leak that killed thousands of people in Bhopal in 1984. One paper described the two-year sentences given to eight former Union Carbide executives as "absurdly light punishment" and "a travesty of justice". Several accused successive Indian governments of kowtowing to US business interests in their failure to bring the...

A Tripuri woman was beaten up and paraded naked through her village by panchayat members in Dhalai after a kangaroo court accused her of sexual misconduct last Saturday. The 30-year-old wife of a farmer, villagers said, “were spoiling young boys with sexual bait” in Jayanti Bazar village. Last Saturday, when the mother of two was feeding her children around 12pm, panchayat member Bangalaxmi Debbarma came to her house and asked her to...