On the night of December 2, 1984, the world’s worst chemical disaster devastated a small town in India. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy has gone down in history and few people are unaware of the facts. Of how 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas came swooping out of a Union Carbide pesticide plant. Of how the lethal fumes engulfed a sleeping town. Of how, by the time, people woke up and realised what was happening, it was too late for many of them. The gas had killed 3800 people and maimed another 11,000. The death toll continues to rise with 15,000 dead and 20 years on, tens of thousands still suffer serious symptoms from contact with the gas.
Twenty-three years later, the people of Bhopal are still battling diseases such as paralysis, partial blindness and impaired immune systems and waiting for justice. Dow Chemicals, the company that merged with Union Carbide, washed its hands off the Bhopal tragedy even though it was clearly proven that negligence had caused the disaster. After much fighting, they finally agreed to give survivors, who have to live with chronic illnesses or brain damage their whole lives, an average of $500 dollars each. In a press release, Dow spokesperson said that “$500 is plenty good for an Indian.” Splendid, isn’t it?
Here is a snapshot of how methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas affects the body.
To date, the abandoned factory continues to pollute the environment. Effluents poison the ground water. Lead and mercury float in the breast milk of mothers. Greenpeace has a detailed timeline. They don’t seem to have updated it after 2003 but it gives a snapshot of events until then. Read and weep.
Meanwhile look at Dow’s tremendous PR efforts here. Frankly, there’s something revolting about the public relations (or ‘crisis management’ as it is called) machinery that kicks into action at such times like a pack of well-trained hyenas. All laughing to the tune of lies.
We are part of an ever-evolving global society - one that values organizations such as Dow not only for our products and services, but also for the distinctive image we present to our world and its people. We don’t want people to think “chemicals” when they hear “Dow” — we want them to hear “Living. Improved Daily.” We don’t want them to think of a corporation striving to maximize profits, we want them to think of a good neighbor.
Therefore, our contributions must extend beyond profit performance. We strongly believe that if we are to be successful in the 21st Century, we must simultaneously excel in all three elements of development: economic prosperity, corporate responsibility and shareholder stewardship. And unless we’re frequently and visibly expressing a deep concern about Sustainable Development, we’re missing opportunities to position Dow as the caring, concerned global citizen our customers must believe us to be.
Yesterday, survivors marked the anniversary by going on protest marches to demand justice and holding a torchlight rally to remember the dead. They need all the voice they can muster because their own government is certainly not going to shout, or even whimper, for them. In October, a news article reported:
The centre is all set to pave the way for Dow Chemicals to invest in India, by removing all “legal hurdles” related to the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the world’s biggest industrial disasters that claimed thousands of lives.
The Department of Industries has moved a Cabinet note asking the government to absolve Dow Chemicals of all legal liabilities.…. The note provides for withdrawal of the affidavit and out-of-court settlement. It is based on the Law Ministry’s opinion that the government can opt to settle out of court with Dow Chemicals as the latter does not own the financial liabilities of Union Carbide, the main accused in the case. The Chemicals Ministry has opposed this view.
When is a good time to start educating children about certain things? This is an ongoing debate in many parenting circles. The more conservative a society is in their attitudes towards ‘morality’, the more likely it is that children will reach adulthood without receiving any coherent information on important topics such as substance abuse or sexuality. Here is an interesting commercial telling people to talk to their children early about things like alcohol abuse. What do you think?
This, of course, brings me to the other big one. World AIDS Day just passed by and there was lots of talk in the print and television media about it. (Unlike a lot of other problems, HIV/AIDS does get its share of public attention and funding.) We had a lot of newspaper coverage on this in India as well but — and this is the part that flummoxes me — there is still no proper sex education offered in schools here. So basically, children can access information on HIV and sex and sexuality from the media, but not formally from the educational system in a structured way. As if doing this would somehow amount to giving them ‘permission’ for things they would otherwise stay away from.
It’s quite clear that educational institutions should include HIV and human rights / non-discrimination issues wherever they can and link it to the more formal subjects that they are relevant to. It’s astounding that some governments around the world still fail to observe this basic measure. For those who think their kids should know more and are looking to take things into their own hands, there’s lots of material available on the Internet. UNAIDS and WHO has a detailed cartoon strip that might help. This is an extract but you can go here for the full thing.
Shifting track slightly, this report by Human Rights Watch caught my attention the other day. It seems that Thailand’s success in dealing with HIV is getting a serious shot in the foot because of discrimination against its highest population of HIV positive people — drug users. Now, it’s obvious that there are severe legal implications here and these are getting entangled with the larger issue of providing treatment and creating a mighty mess. The report says:
In 2004, Thailand rescinded a national policy that explicitly permitted the exclusion of injection drug users from antiretroviral treatment programs.
But drug users still face serious obstacles in accessing needed health care. Many health care providers do not know or do not follow HIV/AIDS treatment guidelines, and continue to deny antiretroviral treatment to drug users, even those in methadone treatment programs.
When drug users do receive treatment, it is under complicated circumstances and often surreptitiously because they are worried about being turned in to the police.
Out of fear of reprisal, drug users who do receive antiretroviral treatment are unlikely to tell their physicians about their drug use, or to seek information about drug dependence treatment from their antiretroviral treatment provider. This fear is not unfounded: the report confirms that many public hospitals and clinics share information about drug use with law enforcement, both as a matter of policy and practice. Some clinicians operated a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward drug users, refusing to inquire about patients’ drug use or drug treatment history, in some cases despite knowledge or suspicion of current drug use or methadone treatment.
The government’s failure to ensure conditions in which safe exchange of information is possible compromises drug users’ access to adequate HIV and other health care services. As a result, drug users face harmful drug interactions without health care workers to consult about the dangerous potential consequences for their health and, ultimately, their lives.
The International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights (PDF), a 120-page document published jointly by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, points to the connection between protection of human rights and effective HIV programmes. The incidence or spread of HIV is disproportionately high among some populations because these groups, being vulnerable in any case, find it harder to access treatment or fight discrimination. Typically, these groups include women, children, those living in poverty, minorities, indigenous people, migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons, people with disabilities, prisoners, sex workers, men having sex with men and injecting drug users. Legally and socially, such groups need to be addressed and included in the battle against HIV. And while this may be easier said than done, it’s important to see that an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ attitude is going to hurt everyone in the end.
district 9 myspace 2 girls 1 cup “district 9 neill blomkamp”
The campaign for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence kicked off yesterday. Coordinated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, the campaign runs from November 25 to December 10 every year and since 1991, has helped raise awareness about gender violence and has highlighted its effects on women globally. For more, go here.
So here’s what I thought you should know about. UNFPA has a list of the five most under-reported forms of violence against women. Brace yourself. It’s not pretty. The list includes bride-napping, breast-ironing, traumatic fistula, femicide and child marriage. Bride-napping and child marriage are reasonably common terms so here are definitions of the other three.
Breast-ironing, a traditional practice in a number of West African countries that involves crushing the breasts of young girls in order to deter male attention;
The epidemic of traumatic fistula in Africa, which is caused by gang rape and often the forced insertion of foreign objects into the rape victim. This results in the tearing of the delicate tissues separating the birth canal from the bowel and/or the bladder. Seriously injured and psychologically traumatized, the victim is left incontinent, leaking faeces, urine, or both. Too often, her family and community rejects her, to live out the remainder of her life as a pariah—doubly stigmatized—both by the rape itself and its terrible consequences.
The ongoing femicide of women in the Central American country of Guatemala. Unlike the killings of young women in Ciudad Juarez, on the El Paso/Mexico border, the wholesale murder and mutilation of Guatemala’s women continues to be enacted under a cloak of media silence and official neglect.
Sometimes, one may well wonder what the point of knowing such things is. Most of us think we live fairly powerless lives with little ability to move or change anything in the wider world out there, let alone in distant Guatemala, Mexico or Kenya. Well, the 16 Days Action Kit may change your view about how much (or little) you can do. In a nutshell, you can:
I would say that’s quite a few different options and at least a few of them are easy to do even if you’re busy, a man, a “non-feminist”, apolitical, and “not the activist type”. To go a step further, it seems to me that no. 1 is a no-brainer and should be possible to do all year round and not just for these 16 days. What do you think?
The World Toilet Summit took place here in New Delhi earlier this month. Delegates racked their brains to come up with ideas for innovative toilets. And if you can’t help a smirk at that, consider this:
Due to the absence of an organised sanitation system, 1.8 million children across the world die of diarrhoea annually, and close to half the population in developing countries suffers health problems caused by water and sanitation defects, at any given time. The World Health Organisation estimates that 200 million people are infected with schistosomiasis — a disease caused by lack of access to hygienic sanitation facilities. Experts say open defection contaminates water and helps the spread of diseases like diarrhoea, which kills at least 4,900 people everyday, worldwide….(more).
Nothing remotely funny there, unfortunately. According to this video report, self-cleaning toilets and a fourteen-year-old inventor who has come up with an idea for preventing sewage disposal from trains at railway stations were part of the annual summit.
This UN report says that lack of sanitation facilities dooms 3 billion people to a life that is primitive and devoid of basic dignity. Apart from causing disease, lack of proper sanitation facilities can have more indirect impact as well — such as on girl’s education. Girls tend to miss school when there are no sanitation facilities because it is difficult for them to go out in the open. When there are no separate facilities for boys and girls, they don’t attend school during menstruation. It’s worse when there are no latrines at home.
In many cultures, girls and women wait until after dark to defecate if they have no latrine in the household, experiencing discomfort and sometimes serious illness as a result. When girls and women have to walk to a place distant from their home for excreta disposal, particularly at night, they are vulnerable to harassment and assault.
It’s hard to imagine people living without latrines — something that so many take for granted in this era of designer bathrooms and spa treatments — but the number of
people without access to latrines and toilets increased by some 400 million over the last decade. And with increasing migration and urbanisation and burgeoning slums, it is likely to keep doing so unless solutions are provided quickly.
On a lighter note, here’s a hilarious CWS commercial via The Bathroom Diaries. Enjoy.
The image used in the post is of Lam Sai Wing’s Golden Toilet via Travel Channel.
I started my Monday morning with this video on continued human rights violations in China. Not a very cheery beginning to the week, but I definitely recommend a watch.
China is gearing up for the 2008 Olympic Games which are to be hosted in Beijing. There is something far more important than sport being played out in this arena, however. The world now has its eye on China’s human rights standards and is watching to see whether it will make good on its promise to improve its dismal human rights records. In December 2006, the Chinese government also unveiled new temporary regulations to give accredited foreign journalists more freedom in the run-up to and during the Games.
According to the Human Rights Watch overview, the country “remains a one-party state that does not hold national elections, has no independent judiciary, leads the world in executions, aggressively censors the Internet, bans independent trade unions, and represses minorities such as Tibetans, Uighurs, and Mongolians.”
Things have not improved much despite the promises according to this report. In the run-up to the Games, China is keen to present its best face to the world and freedom of expression is being heavily curtailed. Recently, Reporters Without Borders activists rallied in front of the Olympic museum in Lausanne even as the Chinese Communist Party’s 17th congress opened to protest continued inaction on the human rights agenda.
“For the past several weeks an icy wind has blown through freedom of expression in China. This with less than 10 months to go before the opening of the Olympic Games. How can the IOC and its ethical commission remain silent before such a heavy toll of violations of freedom of expression?” it asked.
“More than 30 foreign journalists have been arrested and prevented from working since the start of the year. No fewer than one thousand discussion forums and websites have been closed since July. And a score of dissidents have been imprisoned for expressing themselves freely,” Reporters Without Borders said.
For some background information on the human rights situation in China, read RWB’s Annual Report 2007 which details some of the atrocities committed by Hu Jintao’s government in the name of “harmonious society”.
Hu Jintao’s voiced rage against “hostile forces”, whom he accused of fomenting a “coloured revolution” backed by the United States and led by human rights activists and liberal journalists, when he spoke to an audience of ministers, ambassadors and party provincial officials in August 2006. As preparations got under way for the next Communist Party Congress in October 2007, public security arrested at least 12 journalists and placed scores more under surveillance. This crackdown has also extended to lawyers. In March they were banned by China’s Association of Lawyers from speaking to foreign journalists about “masses incidents”, concerning groups such as the unemployed and the peasants. In September, Chinese judges had the same ban on speaking to the press slapped on them.
The Chinese government monitors every bit of information passing in and out of the country. Which is why news reports on China usually focus on its booming economic prospects and speak nothing of the poverty, corruption and inhuman prison conditions. but here is Amnesty International’s lowdown on the rights violations plaguing China’s 1.3 billion people.
Torture and ill-treatment remained widespread. Common methods included kicking, beating, electric shocks, suspension by the arms, shackling in painful positions, cigarette burns, and sleep and food deprivation. In November a senior official admitted that at least 30 wrongful convictions handed down each year resulted from the use of torture, with the true number likely being higher.
I don’t know about you but I’m going to find it hard to muster too much enthusiasm about the Games this time.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
~ Dylan Thomas
The bloodbath that followed the peaceful protest of monks in Burma last week has the world reeling. Unarmed protesters were beaten, tear-gassed and shot at — all in a day’s work for Burma’s ruling junta which has stifled every gasp of freedom in the country for the last 50 years or so. Thousands of monks have been imprisoned, “disrobed and shackled”. Now, they will be sent away to prisons in the far north of the country. It is doubtful that they will ever emerge once they are sent away. Meanwhile, it’s hard to know exactly what is going on in Rangoon because the government’s stranglehold on media remains strong.
What one does glean is that an UN convoy has had talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the world is looking anxiously to Asean countries to use their influence on Burma. But economic links and trade ties seem to have blindfolded and gagged Burma’s neighbours, even if one of them is the world’s largest democracy. India is not only practicing a level of ‘diplomacy’ that is faintly disgusting, it also continues to supply arms to Burma’s government. This article points to the strategic concerns underlying India’s low key response. And this earlier story in Himal Magazine looks at the India-Burma embrace in greater detail.
Though India continues to request cooperation from the Burmese side in counter-insurgency operations, the generals have at best been lethargic. Upon pressure from New Delhi, they attack the NSCN-K camps in Burma, but show little interest in cracking down on the other insurgent groups.
In trying to work with Rangoon, Indian policy makers forget that many of the problems they face are linked to the nature of governance in Burma, which precludes a sustained and co-operative bilateral relationship. There is no space for dialogue, freedom of speech and political expression in a country where the foremost pro-democracy leader and Nobel Laureate remains under strict house arrest. It is estimated that around 1000 political prisoners, including members elected to Parliament in 1990, are detained in jails across Burma.
China has also largely remained quiet, driven by its commercial interests and its need for stability in the region. Here is an article analyzing where the country stands with regard to the Burmese issue. To me, here is an important point:
China’s Communist-dominated domestic politics also explain its reluctance to intervene.
“If you support peaceful political change in Burma, then it opens too many doors and questions like ‘Why aren’t you supporting it here?’ ” says Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based China specialist.
So between commercial priorities, political backslapping and the pot being unable to call the kettle black, it looks like Burma’s monks can depend little on anyone to come to their help. This is disturbing but I’m sure surprises no one really. Commentators can do little except shake their heads solemnly and articulate once again the sanctions which, if imposed on Burma, would compel the government to change its mind. Or talk about how nobody’s clean in the Burmese blame game. Or suggest a rethink, without actually offering any concrete solutions. Well, comment is free and in the absence of any other choice, we can do little else.
You can, however, add your little bit to the fight by signing the Awaaz petition. A drop in the ocean is better than none at all — and who knows, maybe the monks will actually be freed some day. Hope is what we all live on.
The latest Newsweek carries a report on how xenophobia is thriving among the Alps. Peaceful Switzerland is not so peaceful, it seems, and there is trouble brewing under that pristine exterior. What’s triggered this off is a contentious election campaign poster put up by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP). The poster features three white sheep on a background of the Swiss flag — with one black sheep being kicked out. The symbolism is unmistakable.
The party claims that the poster merely promotes its plan to deport foreigners convicted of crimes. But many are not convinced and are questioning the deeper racist imagery and messaging. According to Newsweek:
The black-sheep campaign has drawn condemnation from the United Nations’ special rapporteur on racism, who says it “provokes racial and religious hatred” and should be withdrawn to restore “the image of Switzerland as a country respectful of human rights.”
The Swiss People’s Party (the Schweizerische Volkspartei or SVP) has the largest number of seats in the Swiss parliament and is a member of the country’s coalition government. This makes anything they condone or endorse a matter to be taken seriously. This Independent article questions whether Switzerland has become Europe’s heart of darkness and emphasizes SVP’s role in this.
The party has launched a campaign to raise the 100,000 signatures necessary to force a referendum to reintroduce into the penal code a measure to allow judges to deport foreigners who commit serious crimes once they have served their jail sentence.
But far more dramatically, it has announced its intention to lay before parliament a law allowing the entire family of a criminal under the age of 18 to be deported as soon as sentence is passed.
It will be the first such law in Europe since the Nazi practice of Sippenhaft – kin liability – whereby relatives of criminals were held responsible for their crimes and punished equally.
The party has also launched a campaign for a referendum to ban the building of Muslim minarets, which has raised hackles.
Traditionally, Switzerland has been known for its stable political structure. But according to political expert Wof Linder, the run-up to the parliamentary elections on October 21 have been more aggressive than ever before and decidedly “un-Swiss”.
The tone has become harsher, but also rougher. I’m thinking here of the People’s Party, which has overstepped over the mark with its posters where the [white] sheep throw the black sheep out of Switzerland.
But it’s a similar story with the [centre-left] Social Democrats as one of their posters shows a plane crashing into a nuclear power plant. These are examples of things which have really overstepped the mark compared with the usual political style.
The SVP’s hard-line, anti-immigrant tactics garnered 26.2 per cent of the vote four years ago and latest polls show that it may achieve the same this time around. But the issues symbolized by a black sheep on a poster are much larger than one election campaign. They’re about identity, fear and belonging. As the Independent points out:
What is at stake here in Switzerland is not merely a dislike of foreigners or a distrust of Islam but something far more fundamental. It is a clash that goes to the heart of an identity crisis which is there throughout Europe and the US. It is about how we live in a world that has changed radically since the end of the Cold War with the growth of a globalised economy, increased immigration flows, the rise of Islam as an international force and the terrorism of 9/11. Switzerland only illustrates it more graphically than elsewhere.
Some time back, genital mutilation in Egypt came into sharp focus when a thirteen-year-old girl died on the operation table. Now, the tides may be shifting slowly, but undeniably. According to this NYT article:
But now, quite suddenly, forces opposing genital cutting in Egypt are pressing back as never before. More than a century after the first efforts to curb this custom, the movement has broken through one of the main barriers to change: It is no longer considered taboo to discuss it in public. That shift seems to have coincided with a small but growing acceptance of talking about human sexuality on television and radio.
For the first time, opponents said, television news shows and newspapers have aggressively reported details of botched operations. This summer two young girls died, and it was front-page news in Al Masry al Yom, an independent and popular daily. Activists highlighted the deaths with public demonstrations, which generated even more coverage.
At the forefront of this movement is anthropologist Marie Assaad who has been fighting the barbaric practice for around 50 years. In the beginning, she started off with outright condemnation but realizing that this was not working, she employed more strategic moves. She got Islamic scholars and health care workers to endorse her views and dispel illusions. She also managed to garner support from other powerful women in the country.
I think there’s much to be learned from her strategy when it comes to overthrowing age-old, ingrained customs and patterns of behaviour. Give people arguments they can relate to. Win supporters in different key groups, especially the ones most likely to oppose you. And be tenacious.
Even as recently as 2005, a government health survey showed that 96 percent of the thousands of married, divorced or widowed women interviewed said they had undergone genital mutilation. The battle is far from over, or even close to the finishing line. But at least, it has started in earnest.
This article in New Statesman talks in detail about China’s efforts to “civilize” Tibet. As part of this “civilizing mission”, China is using economic growth as the primary method of infiltration into this quiet land where matters of the spirit have long taken precedence over those of the wallet.
Traditional Tibetans may be as devoutly Buddhist as ever, but modern China worships Mammon. More than half a century after the Chinese invasion of Tibet, and 48 years after the Dalai Lama fled into exile in India, China’s Communist rulers are hoping that an economic boom will help them consolidate control over the recalcitrant region. Last year, 2.5 million tourists and business people - some westerners, but most Han Chinese - visited Lhasa. Now the new railway from Beijing has reached the Tibetan capital, the number is expected to increase by 80 per cent this year alone.
Historically, Tibet has been an independent nation and since China invaded it 50 years ago, the Dalai Lama has been leading the people in non-violent resistance but China has continually notched up horrific levels of human rights violation in Tibet. The outlook has never been very hopeful because China does not really show signs of letting go. From this slightly old report on the subject:
Pessimists think it is impossible for China to change its policies toward Tibet because China needs Tibet as an armed camp for military security. They also think China needs Tibet’s vast territory and natural resources for its economic prosperity, and that China must save face in the global arena by not admitting that past policies were misguided and inhumane.
China seems to have changed tack in the last few years though and insidious colonization is taking the place of outright brutality. According to the News Statesman article:
…these days the Chinese attitude tends to be more patronising than brutal. It is official policy to tolerate ethnic minorities and their religions, provided they are loyal to the party and the state. “The government pays full respect to ethnic customs,” says Mr He. “Tibetan culture is an exotic flower among Chinese cultures. It has existed for more than 2,000 years. But we will help them remove bad or backward habits, and lead them to a more civilised life.” As part of its civilising mission, and to integrate Tibetans into the modern economy, the government has resettled 25,000 nomadic and farming families into “new socialist villages”. The plan is to settle 80 per cent of rural Tibetans in the next five years.
Tibetans have feared and protested against cultural genocide for years now and there were protests against the new railway as soon as it was announced last year. This article last year talked about the multiple ways in which the Golmud-Lhasa railway linking Tibet to several Chinese cities would affect the region.
The Golmud-Lhasa railway is expected to strengthen the iron grip that China has over Tibet and increase the militarization of the region. It would allow the rapid deployment of Chinese troops and facilitate the deployment of missiles, including nuclear weapons. The environment in Tibet will also suffer. The railway will be also facilitate the exploitation of Tibet’s natural resources, which are already plundered without any concern for the ecological impact and without collective benefit for Tibetans.
The Dalai Lama expressed that it was “politically motivated to bring about demographic change”. Their worst fears appear to be coming true. The engine of cultural obliteration is chugging fast. Whether it will succeed in overrunning a people who have held onto their beliefs despite all odds for so long remains a question. We can only pray that it will be answered in one way rather than the other.
For more information on the Free Tibet Campaign, visit their site. The Save Tibet website also offers information and updates on the situation.
The 15th Erase Racism Carnival is up at Racewire. A note of explanation for those who’re unfamiliar with this, the Racism Carnival is basically a monthly blogosphere event. Every month, a different blog gathers the best blog posts on racial injustice issues and presents them in one place. This month, they’ve looked at some important topics like Race and the Green Economy, Black-Brown Relations and — something that’s increasingly important in the global context — Immigration and Migration. There are a host of interesting posts under Race and Gender in Media, including this one on how French cosmetic brand L’Oreal was guilty of racism during a recent direct marketing campaign.
L’Oreal unit Garnier has been found guilty of excluding non-white women when it recruited people to hand out its samples of its shampoo and discuss styling with shoppers. The company had set out exactly what size it expected the women to be, and also specified that they needed to be “BBR”, the initials for bleu, blanc, rouge, the colors of the French flag. Anyone who has spent time in France knows that BBR is code used by the the far right. For employers, it’s code for whites only. Asians, North Africans and Africans needn’t apply.
Eric Stoller’s views on why he blogs, in the Whiteness Revisited section, are heartwarming.
Sometimes I think about shutting the whole thing down. Then I am reminded by an internal alarm that tells me that yes, as a white heterosexual man, I can walk away from this blog. I can go through my entire life on this planet and never have to think about my race, my gender, or my sexual orientation. It’s the combination of a set of unearned privileges. However, I am an anti-racist, feminist, ally. My dignity is linked to those who are oppressed because of their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. My dignity is maimed and suffers because of racism, sexism, homophobia, heterosexism, etc.
I don’t approach my blog posts as if this is a debate. This is personal for me.
On the night of December 2, 1984, the world’s worst chemical disaster devastated a small town in India. The Bhopal Gas Tragedy has gone down in history and few people are unaware of the facts. Of how 40 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas came swooping out of a Union Carbide pesticide plant. Of how the lethal fumes engulfed a sleeping town. Of how, by the time, people woke up and realised what was happening, it was too late for many of them. The gas had killed 3800 people and maimed another 11,000. The death toll continues to rise with 15,000 dead and 20 years on, tens of thousands still suffer serious symptoms from contact with the gas.
The campaign for 
The