Quote:The case against the BP p.l.c. brand is not so much that the company will enter bankruptcy. It is that BP may end up breaking into pieces for its own sake. This may be to put the liabilities for the Deepwater Horizon spill into a company that also holds escrow capital to cover the huge costs of clean-up and suits. BP may also want to separate its successful refining operations from its exploration business, or recreate an American- based company similar to BP America, which existed for two decades. A restructuring of BP would also allow the firm to take a badly crippled brand and give the oil operation a new name -- much as it did when it changed its name from British Petroleum. The second time may be the charm.



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Quote:Bhopal Madhya Pradesh has removed Swaraj Puri, Bhopal SP at the time of the 1984 gas leak disaster, as member of the Grievance Redressal Authority that looks into complaints related to Narmada Valley projects.



After the verdict in the gas leak case, a video surfaced, showing Puri himself driving the Ambassador car that took then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson to the Bhopal airport on December 7, 1984. Anderson flew to Delhi and left India.



Puri was made a member of the Grievance Redressal Authority after he retired as DG, Home Guards in 2007.

Quote:NEW DELHI: The alacrity shown by the government in setting up a Group of Ministers (GoM) to look into all issues of the Bhopal gas tragedy - including adequacy of compensation - was clearly missing just three years ago when the UPA government opposed tooth and nail any enhancement of payment to the sufferers.



Two applications by NGOs - Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghathan (BGPMUS) and Bhopal Gas Peedith Sangharsh Sahayog Samiti (BGPSSS) - were filed before SC seeking "re-examination of the inadequacy of Bhopal Gas Settlement and to direct Union of India to compensate the settlement fund five times the initial fund" among other relief.



The NGOs argued that neither had all eligible victims been identified nor had adequate compensation been paid to them. They alleged that the estimate used to create the settlement fund was based on a conservative figure, and compensation paid to the kin was woefully inadequate.



These groups had asserted that the magnitude of the disaster in terms of death as well as injuries was at least five times larger than what was assumed in 1989. It was then estimated that at least 3,000 people died and 30,000 were injured. The toll now stands at five times the 1989 estimate.



The UPA government had opposed the plea saying it was based on "assumptions, surmises and conjecture and on misreading of the judgments of the Supreme Court".



The Centre had said, "NGOs were trying to reopen the issue of compensation which had been settled with the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) and the Union of India and that the SC had approved the said settlement." It had argued that adequacy of compensation can't be reopened either.



The SC recorded the admissible compensation scheme under the Rajiv Gandhi government enacted Bhopal Gas Leak Disaster (Processing of Claims) Act, 1985, which provided Rs 1-3 lakh for death, Rs 50,000 to Rs 2 lakh for permanent disability, upto Rs 4 lakh for severe injury, upto Rs 20,000 for minor injuries, upto Rs 15,000 for loss of belongings and upto Rs 10,000 for loss of livestock.



Besides opposing the applications, the Centre had told SC that "several false and vexatious claims under death and injury category had been lodged". It also argued that it would not be appropriate for the apex court to express any opinion one way or the other and that the aggrieved victims could move the Welfare Commissioner in Bhopal under the 1985 Act for adequate compensation.



The SC agreed with the Centre and dismissed the applications saying there was a framework available for the aggrieved victims to seek enhancement of compensation, but not without reminding it of the 1991 judgment of the apex court holding Centre liable for pitching in with additional funds if the money paid by UCC was found inadequate.

Quote:The Anderson issue showed no signs of abating today with PV Narasimha Rao's son, Ranga Rao suggesting that his father would not have taken a decision on his own on granting "safe passage" to the Union Carbide chief a few days after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy.



Contesting the claim made by the then Foreign Secretary M K Rasgotra that Narasimha Rao was instrumental in allowing Warren Anderson to leave the country, Ranga Rao said, "I don't think my father took such a big decision on his own".



"He had his own superiors. He had his own colleagues," Ranga Rao told television channels adding, "to put the entire blame on my father is unfair."



Rasgotra had claimed that the decision to give Anderson safe passage was taken by the Home Ministry under Rao

in consultation with the Cabinet Secretary.

Quote:The GoM, which concluded its three-day deliberations, is believed to have decided to make fresh efforts for the extradition of former Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson and to come up with a "clean up" project at the gas plant site in Bhopal to bury toxic material there.



.....

On the clean up proposal, the GoM is believed to have decided that the Madhya Pradesh government would undertake the job with technical and financial support from the Centre.

Quote:Union Carbide and its then chairman Warren Anderson may have offered compensation higher than what was finally agreed on for the Bhopal gas disaster, but that initial offer was rejected by India because Carbide had sought oversight over the compensation process through an audit firm.



According to some who were involved in the process, a secondary channel for negotiations had been established in 1985 between Anderson and India.

At the time, Carbide had liability insurance worth $ 100 million but there was willingness to take an additional $400 million from the company’s shareholder equity.

But, Anderson sought monitoring of the payment process through a firm of auditors like Arthur Andersen, which is now defunct. This offer was rejected by Indian authorities, sources said. The final settlement arrived at $ 470 million.



Ravi Batra, part of the negotiations then, was a member of National Advisory Council on South Asian Affairs. Batra who met and had telephonic conversations with Anderson during the period said, “He was dedicated to maximizing relief to the victims ….He offered $400 million of stockholder equity in addition to $100 of insurance proceeds…I was sad to learn that ... what he was offering was not acceptable to various constituencies on the claimants’ side.”

The offer had been conveyed to Indian authorities including a cabinet minister during a meeting at the South Portico in Washington. But the breaking point appeared to be India’s reluctance to accept any manner of foreign oversight.

Quote:Expressing concern over the poisonous waste, Forest and Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said he felt sorry that the government smuggled out 40 tonnes of toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory to an incinerator 230 km away at a site in Pithampur. Earlier, he had said it was a matter of "anguish"



"It is a matter of great anguish that the waste was lying in the factory's premises even after 25 years of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy", Ramesh told reporters after public consultation on National Mission for a Green India here.