A much delayed confession

26 years after the Bhopal gas tragedy the union government and Arjun Singh has come out with statements realising the irredeemable deep scars the catastrophe has caused on Bhopal residents and the extended agonies and woes suffered by the second generation of the Bhopal gas victims. Arjun Singh the then MP chief Minister now says P.V.Narasimha Rao,the then Home minister was responsible for Union Carbide Chairman Anderson to escape arrest and get out of India.Arjun Singh now says Manmohan Singh has to talk to Obama and get Anderson extradited to India.Home Minister P.Chidambaram admitted Candidly in the lok Sabha that the Government didn't address the Bhopal tragedy seriously.The government has now gone on record that it would pursue the case against Anderson seriously.The wisdom has dawn on the government long after the horse has run out of the stable. It is strange that those in government and the judiciary forgot the dictum Justice delayed is Justice denied.The judiciary has also contributed to the drubbing of the Bhopal people.Originally the case was filed under section 304 causing death due to negligence.But former chief justice Ahmedi in a review petition changed the case to section 304(II)culpable homicide not amounting to murder.Veerappa Moily said the charges were diluted by the court.Facing flak from the media and gas victims the former chief Justice even ofered to resign then.PC was careful in making a political statement that successive governments have failed in dealing with the Bhopal tragedy thereby implicating the BJP also.This is also true.PC said the government has a time bound action plan to address the Bhopal gas victims.A government talking about time bound action plan to the victims of a serious disaster after 26 years is ignonimous.The government now talks about disposing the accumulated toxic waste at the plant site.The neglect by the government has already inflicted greivous damages to the residents of Bhopal.More than the neglect the continued apathy by successive governments to the Bhopal gas victims even deprived them of their legitimate compensation from a callous Union carbide management.The Bhopal tragedy is considered as the worst ever industrial disaster in world history so far.It is very appalling to note when a tragedy of this magnitude has struck the nation,the government at the centre and the state remained silent and ineffective.The government was then toothless and failed to provide succour to the suffering public.25 years after the tragedy the trail of the tragedy continues to affect successive generations.Even after 25 years of the gruesome incident neither the State government or the Central government has a learnt bitter lesson or is equipped to tackle,may God forbid, a similar disaster.Since the toxic waste has not been cleaned up by Union Carbide after the tragedy,there has been a sustained pollution of the environment.44 tons of toxic residue and 25 tons of alpha napthol are reportedly still lying around the abandoned factory premises.It is reported that soil,ground water ,vegetables and even breast milk has traces of the toxin even today.The usually vocal environment minister Jairam Ramesh is a mute spectator to this environment pollution.With in hours of the tragedy on that fateful night of December 3 1984, Bhopal was literally cluttered with corpses,carcasses of  bufaloes,cows,dogs and birds.The death toll was more than 23000.More than 5.7 lakh people were affected directly and indirectly crippled for life and thousands of families are affected for generations to come.The doctors were not trained to attend to a disater of this type.The Bhopal children are born blind,deaf or mute,lame ,with limbs twisted,webbed fingers,cerebral palsy and hare lips.Still born children can not be recogonised as human.There were 850 pregnant women living in 1 KM radius at the time of the tragedy.Nearly half of them gave birth to still born children.The victims have been fighting for justice for 25 long years.After 25 years those in authority accept that they have bungled and botched up handling the gas tragedy victims.The government messed up in many areas .Chronology of the bungle is as follows.

The tragedy occured on December 3,1984.

On December 7 Union Carbide Chairman Anderson was allowed to flee the country.

By passing an Act on Bhopal tragedy the government deprives the victims from going to courts seeking compensation in 1985.

Goverment agrees with Union carbide for a paltry compensation of 47 billion us dollars.

SC admits a review petition on compensation in 1989.

SC orders an interim relief of Rs 200 per month to victims of the tragedy.

In 1994 while the Union Carbide case is subjudice,government allows Carbide to sell its sahres.

In 1996 the case was changed from death due to negligence to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

In 2001 Dow Chemicals acquires Union Carbide.

In 2002 Victims stage rallies to remove toxic accumulations in abandoned plant.

In 2002 CBI says Anderson is not traceable.

In 2003 US courts dismisses plea to hear the case and punish Anderson in US.

In 2004 US refuses to extradite Anderson.

In 2004 Us courts order Dow chemicals to clean up the factory premises.

In 2004 july SC orders payment of Rs 25000/per head compensation to 5.7 lakh victims

In 2005 SC orders full settlement of Compensation before 1st of April.

In 2005 Victims want Dow chemicals to clean up the plant area off toxic waste.

In 2006 Manmohan singh refuses to accede to the victims pleas to take action against Dow chemicals.

In 2008 startling disclosures were made by an RTI applicant that BJP recieved an 1 lakh donation  from DOw chemicals in 2006-2007.

In june 2010 seven of the Union Carbide officials were sentenced to 2 years imprisonment and were mmediatley released on bail.

The only solace to the Bhopals gas tragedy victims is that the government has accepted the fact  that they have failed.Now it remains to be seen if the government is really serious about its commitments made on the floor of the house to the people of Bhopal.

Straight from the shoulder

Union Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh has once again made some forthright remarks in China that has drawn flak from many quarters.Jairam is an intellect and and is known to air his views candidly.Most times he is unbiased and outspoken.But this time he did it on a wrong turf.His remarks could be interpreted in various ways by many and has irked his party and many of his ministerial colleagues.Nonetheless we do not know if there is any truth in Jairam's remarks.Yet Jairam could have made such observations in a party forum or a cabinet meeting.He has been very vocal on many policy issues.He has supported many policy issues squarely and also has disapproved many equally strongly.During his recent visit to China he has called the Home Ministry 'Alarmist and Paranoid' on China.Ramesh has clearly exceeded his brief and this was an unsolicited comment,escpecially on a foreign soil.He has embarassed the country,congress Party and his ministerial colleagues by making this comment.BJP lost no time in asking for the resignation of Jairam Ramesh.May be he has said this because of his obsession towards China and wants Sino-India relationship to reach new heights.But on the contrary his remarks could have a negative impact on Sino-Indian ties.The government immediatley refuted Jairam's remarks and put the record straight.He believes the economic strength of the two contries should compliment each other.He even coined the word 'Chindia'which refers to China and India together in general.He has also written a book called "Making sense of Chindia -Reflections on China and India". Jairam was an Advisor to P.Chidambaram way back in 1996 when PC was Finance Minister.Now he has called PC's Ministry 'Alarmist and Paranoid'.Obviously PC would not have liked this comment and was quick to write to PM about this remark.PM even directed Jairam to talk to PC.But if one goes through Jairam's palin speaking on earlier occasions one can come to the conclusion he is undetered by lack of popular appreciation and continues to make his views known very bluntly.Jairam should understand he is a Central Minister and should confirm with certain esthetic standard of correctness or propriety.His Beijing remarks were highly improper,to say the least. This is not the first time Jairam Ramesh makes such controversial statements through his forthright comments.During the copehagen climate summit Jairam said India would match China in emission cut.PM pulled him up for this comment and he had to retract his remark with another statement that India would not accept any legally binding targets on emission cut.During a convocation ceremony where he was the chief guest he dramatically removed his convocation gown on the podium and said it is a 'barbaric colonial practice'.In another function he said Indian cities are the dirtiest in the world and if there is a Nobel prize for filth India would bag it.He halted the work on a dam in Madhya pradesh on the ground that people displaced were not rehabilitated .But the Central government overruled Jairam and gave permission to go ahead with dam construction.Jairam's contention was environmental guidelines were not followed.As an Environment Minister Jairam might have been right.But he was acting against the policy of the government and was finally overruled by his own government.On another occassion he alleged that there is a deliberate conspiracy by the real estate and mining mafia to finish off the tiger population in the country.Narendra Modi objected to Jairam setting up an Environment committe over the Narmada Project. Jairam aired his views in open against Kamalnath the Road Transport Minister.Kamalnath said Jairam is opposing upgradation of 13 roads to National Highway on the ground of environment clearance.Sharad Pawar also joined issues with Jairam on blocking some road projects in Maharashtra on environment concerns.It is believed finally Pranab intervened to cool the tempers in a meeting.While Pawar Wanted BT Brinjal to be India's first GM crop ,Jairam Put BT Brinjal on hold.This congress government has few bright intellectual ministers who by their astuteness embarass the government.Sashi Tharoor is one among them who got himself int to a soup through his Twitter comments.Jairam Ramesh is another who believes his cognitive perceptions are always right and get in to unnecessary controversies.Unfortunatley an otherwise surefooted PC also sometimes falter and get stumbled with his comments like "The buck stops here " made at Budhadeb .To his bad luck the "buck stops here " comment of PC boomeranged on him.These intelligent ministers must understand their own ministerial colleagues are not at ease with them,leave alone the opposition.Digvijay Singh said he has suffered at the "Intellectual Arrogance" of PC on few occassions.This does not speak well of these bright Ministers.While it is good to have these intellegensia in the cabinet,they should be mindful of their ministerial proprieties and protocols.The government should appear as a cohesive unit to the outside world, no matter what the differences are with in.After the unfortunate Dandawate incident PC was under fire by his own ministerial colleagues.If this continues it would become amply clear that there is no collective responsibility among the union cabinet Ministers and they would become a laughing stock.One hopes PM reins in his cabinet colleagues and restrain his ministers from making off-the cuff remarks.