The Bhopal carbide gas leak in 1984 and present Oil Spill in The Gulf of Mexico are both inauspicious events but there is a lot of conflict in the approach followed to handle the catastrophes. The most important is that one happened in the vicinity of USA and another due to USA based pesticide company UCC. The Bhopal disaster is the world's worst ever industrial catastrophes and occurred at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant. Even after 26 years the victims of the biggest industrial accident are yet to receive succour. On The other hand the culprits of Mexican Oil Spill, British Petroleum is apologizing, announcing and giving compensations , trying to do whatever they can do, but, still US authorities are staring with their eyebrows raised.The BP Board announces an agreed package of measures to meet its obligations as a responsible party and thinking about the dividend as well. The US Government and US President is not happy at all and asking for more. If you compare the death toll it is merely 11 in case of Oil Spill and a huge number of 15000 in case of Bhopal tragedy. Moreover 500,000 people were exposed to methyl isocyanide (MIC) gas , because of which many developed deformities and are still struggling with their disability.
You must be mystified by this gesture of comparing two disasters. Moreover it should be crystal clear that the behavior of US authorities is very self-interested and that is what i am trying to portray. US laws are inhumane and very selfish. On one hand they are pushing multimillion dollar claims fund for deep water horizon spill and at the same time Warren Anderson is under veil in US and the US authorities are mum on the issue. Can't we ask why laws are different for different people? More than two decades since the tragedy, certain civil and criminal cases remain pending in the United States District Court, Manhattan and the District Court of Bhopal, India, against Union Carbide, (now owned by Dow Chemical Company), with an Indian arrest warrant also pending against Warren Anderson, the then CEO of Union Carbide. Greenpeace asserts that as the Union Carbide CEO, Anderson knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company's identical plant in the US. Why the then Industries Minister of India hadn't taken any action against the Union Carbide?.
Again i want to pin point that both the events are unfortunate and proved disastrous. My intention is only to highlight the behavior of US Authorities and Indian Authorities. Why the aam AAdmi(comman man) in India haven't got its due right 25 years back? I have many more queries but no answers. Over to you for your analysis.
You must be mystified by this gesture of comparing two disasters. Moreover it should be crystal clear that the behavior of US authorities is very self-interested and that is what i am trying to portray. US laws are inhumane and very selfish. On one hand they are pushing multimillion dollar claims fund for deep water horizon spill and at the same time Warren Anderson is under veil in US and the US authorities are mum on the issue. Can't we ask why laws are different for different people? More than two decades since the tragedy, certain civil and criminal cases remain pending in the United States District Court, Manhattan and the District Court of Bhopal, India, against Union Carbide, (now owned by Dow Chemical Company), with an Indian arrest warrant also pending against Warren Anderson, the then CEO of Union Carbide. Greenpeace asserts that as the Union Carbide CEO, Anderson knew about a 1982 safety audit of the Bhopal plant, which identified 30 major hazards and that they were not fixed in Bhopal but were fixed at the company's identical plant in the US. Why the then Industries Minister of India hadn't taken any action against the Union Carbide?.
Again i want to pin point that both the events are unfortunate and proved disastrous. My intention is only to highlight the behavior of US Authorities and Indian Authorities. Why the aam AAdmi(comman man) in India haven't got its due right 25 years back? I have many more queries but no answers. Over to you for your analysis.
There is a big disease in India to look upon everybody with a "WHITE SKIN" as God. At that time in 1984, Mr. Anderson was given a godly treatment and literally escorted to the Airport by our so called "Social workers" - the ruling party. Value of a human being's life here in India is just 1 lac rupees or less, that too doesn't reach one's household. The birds and sea life killed due to the oil spill in the gulf carry more value that a persons life here in India. These incidents prompt a person to think, Why the hell do these English nations think of themselves as the world rulers??
ReplyDeleteThe Bhopal gas tragedy has been a very unfortunate incident and its very sad to know that it happened because of negligence of UCC as they kept on ignoring the safety measures at their Bhopal subsidary while maintaing safety standards at their US plant.
ReplyDeleteWhatever happened is a differnt topic and
The Bhopal gas tragedy has been a very unfortunate incident and its very sad to know that it happened because of negligence of UCC as despite several warnings they kept on ignoring the safety measures at their Bhopal subsidary while maintaining safety standards at their US plant.
ReplyDeleteFew things are very clear that the bhopal plant was loacted near a densely populated area and over that they had approvals for using the hazardous chemicals(methyl isocyaite) just to lower the cost of production. So such things happen in INDIA where people in authority sell themselves and their nation for money. We can always see highest order scams, corruption in INDIA? why? Shining India?, to-be-world-power -dream 2020?
We still are a poor country where rich/western find it easy to have their influece and use their buying power. I wish we had a better infrastructre, better polticians, a better sytem in place to provide instant justice rather than taking decades; Even 2 decades after the Bhopal disaster there are still few criminal charges pending against UCC, the victims of Bhopal are still fighing for their rights. This is not one exception, we have many more.. DGP Rathore case, 26/11 mumbai attack, many more.