The Indian government has demanded more than US$1 billion additional compensation for the victims of the world’s worst industrial disaster, a gas leak at a pesticide plant that killed thousands of people in 1984.
Victims and activists have for years campaigned for more money and more severe punishment for those they hold responsible for the accident in the city of Bhopal at a plant owned by the US company Union Carbide.
The New Delhi government filed a petition to the Indian Supreme Court on Friday to coincide with the anniversary of the deaths, an occasion which prompted victims and their families to take their protests onto the streets, an annual event.
Photo: EPA
The petition demanded an additional US$1.24 billion payment and raised the estimate of the deaths from 3,000 to 5,295, according to a report in the Hindu newspaper.
The government said a review had found the calculation of earlier compensation payments to be “completely incorrect.”
Rachna Dhingra, a Bhopal activist, said the petition was largely symbolic and was unlikely to succeed given that, as Union Carbide no longer owns property in India, it cannot be held to account by the court.
“I don’t know what new magic the government of India is going to use to enforce this petition,” Dhingra said by telephone.
Inidan Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government has set up a ministerial panel in response to public anger over what is a perceived to be a lenient verdict handed to seven Indian former employees of Union Carbide in June. The panel has demanded the extradition of a US-based former chairman of the firm.
Union Carbide is now owned by Dow Chemical, which denies any responsibility. Dow Chemical said it bought Union Carbide a decade after it had settled its liabilities with the Indian government in 1989 by paying US$470 million for the victims.
In the early hours of Dec. 3, 1984, about 40 tonnes of toxic methyl isocyanate gas leaked into the atmosphere and was carried by the wind to the surrounding slums.
Activists say 25,000 people died in the immediate aftermath of the accident and in ensuing years, and about 100,000 people who were exposed to the gas continue to suffer today from ailments that range from cancer and blindness to birth defects.
A previous extradition request for Warren Anderson, chairman of Union Carbide when the accident occurred, was turned away by the US, but the Indian government panel has recommended that efforts be made to revive extradition proceedings against him.
Anderson has been classified as an absconder in the case by an Indian court.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not