Congress Undemocratic Ideology - 4

[ramana]

The fallout of the Bhopal judgment is exposing a lot of hidden and hitherto fore suppressed fights inside INC. All kinds of people and their roles are being revealed selectively. If one can read the tealeaves one can see the fight within INC, with BJP and manipulation by uncle by selective leaks to select media in India.





A new blog that looks at Indian politics....



http://magadhstrategy.in/

[Guest]

(1) USA has more say in Indian internal affairs and it is possible they strategized using all kinds of tools and demographic divisions of India to ensure folks who are aligned to US’s interests came to power. It is general belief that too many folks who either are foreigners or with foreign spouses are filled in INC and hence US wants INC to be in power. The entire saga of nuclear deal and its follow up and the desperate nature the government behaved in its dealing during UPA-1 is representation of such a scenario. Now as the fissures are growing between Sonia and MMS, there is a serious chance for MMS’s replacement. Sensing the trouble of change, US may have utilized the circumstances and released the CIA note about late Rajiv Gandhi facilitating Anderson’s escape. This is like a warning to the “some agents” (Sonia etc.) to not alter their main agent (MMS).

I believe above is main reason.

[Guest]

Who was Bhopal's maut ka saudagar, asks Modi

pioneer.com

IANS | Patna

Using Sonia Gandhi's "Maut ka Saudagar" (Merchant of Death) barb against her, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday attacked the Congress president over her "silence" on the Bhopal verdict, and charged the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government with failing to check Maoist violence and rising prices.



Addressing a BJP rally at the conclusion of the party's national executive meeting here, Modi referred to Sonia Gandhi as "Madam Sonia" and wondered why she had not spoken on the Bhopal verdict.



"Why are you quiet on Bhopal, Madam Sonia? The country wants to know who was the Maut ka Saudagar in Bhopal," he said.



"Speak up. Break your silence. The country wants to know what happened in Bhopal," Modi added.



The "Maut ka Saudagar" barb was used by Sonia Gandhi in reference to Modi during her campaign for the Gujarat assembly polls in 2007. It referred to the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat in which over 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.

[ramana]

The current hoopla in the Indian press shows that there are three factions in INC: Sarkari (PMO and Bureaucrats), Family(Gandhi and chamchas] and Madhaymikas(deer in headlight).I think the Madhyamikas will get massacred. Family will get revealed by Sarkaris and their supporters abroad. And Family will go after Sarkaris.



So all in all its "Yadava kulam musalam"



Sarakris and outsiders have a set of tasks they want to pull off. Completing the noose started by earlier Administration.

[Arun_S]

Family strike against Sarkari imminent in 2-3 months.

[ramana]

Operation Save Rajiv in progress!





Op-Ed in Pioneer.



LINK

EDITS | Tuesday, June 15, 2010 | Email | Print | | Back





Glossing over Rajiv’s role



A Surya Prakash



Leaders of the Congress are scurrying for cover as the television and print media have begun bombarding the nation with hitherto unknown facts about the horrific environmental disaster that struck Bhopal in 1984. While a host of Congress leaders, including senior Ministers in the Manmohan Singh Government, and party functionaries have come in the media’s line of fire, the real big story is the possible involvement of Rajiv Gandhi in the release of Union Carbide Corporation’s then chairman Warren Anderson.



Sensing that the needle of suspicion could eventually point at Rajiv Gandhi, the Congress is desperately looking for scapegoats, reminding us all of the party’s discomfort with the truth, especially when it pertains to members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. However, this time round there are not enough foot soldiers to defend the honour of ‘The Family’ because most of them are pre-occupied with saving their own reputation or whatever is left of it.



Tragically, for the country’s oldest party and for India, what is emerging from the information blitzkrieg is that more than a dozen key functionaries and Ministers of the Congress have been batting not for the 15,000 who died and thousands of people who suffered serious disabilities consequent to the gas leak, but for Union Carbide and its successor company. Even more disturbing is the fact that in all probability then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi led the pack of pro-Union Carbide party men. So much for the party’s concern for the aam admi!



Several bureaucrats and police officers have rendered signal service to the country by raising the issue of Warren Andersen’s release on bail and subsequent escape from India.



The first among them was Mr BR Lall, a former Joint Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation. According to him, the Ministry of External Affairs did not want the CBI to press for Anderson’s extradition. Mr PC Alexander, the Principal Secretary to Rajiv Gandhi when he became Prime Minister, has tried to put things in perspective but made no special effort to exonerate his former boss.



The then District Collector of Bhopal has recounted how Anderson was arrested and soon thereafter ‘granted bail’ and flown to Delhi. Meanwhile, a former bureaucrat of Madhya Pradesh has said that Chief Minister Arjun Singh told officials he was under pressure from Rajiv Gandhi to release Anderson. Lending credence to the theory that the then Prime Minister had a hand in his escape is the declassified document of America’s Central Intelligence Agency which speaks of the Union Government’s “quick release” of Anderson after his arrest by “eager” State officials.



From all these accounts, it is very clear that the Government treated Anderson not as a person accused of culpable homicide but as a ‘VIP’. The authorities went through the farce of an ‘arrest’, quickly granted him ‘bail’ after he executed a worthless bond, and packed him off to Delhi on a special aircraft.



The Congress is keen to deflect the debate away from Rajiv Gandhi and to quickly pin the blame on some one else for Anderson’s release. In this particular case, Mr Arjun Singh is the potential fall guy and that is why party spokespersons are fretting and fuming over his silence. In other words, they want him to not only speak up but also own responsibility for letting off Anderson.



However, even if Mr Singh obliges the Nehru-Gandhi family, it is simply not possible to believe that he acted on his own. Those who have watched the Congress and the Nehru-Gandhis while in power will consider such a confession, if it ever comes, as absolute hogwash. When the Nehru-Gandhis are at the helm, we have all seen how Congress Chief Ministers bow and scrape before them and only act on their explicit orders.



But all this effort to keep Rajiv Gandhi’s name out of the controversy need not surprise us because, however daunting the task, it is the duty of loyal Congress leaders to protect the image of the Nehru-Gandhi family.



In order to do so, every effort must be made by them to blame others for all things that go wrong.



Thus, the whole truth about Ayodhya must never be told. It is enough to say that PV Narasimha Rao was the villain. Similarly, the whole truth about the Iraq oil-for-food scam need not be told. The Volcker Committee’s conclusion that the Congress and Mr Natwar Singh were beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein’s largesse must be kept away. It is enough to say that Mr Natwar Singh was the villain.



As regards Ayodhya, the narration must be limited to the events of December 6, 1992 when the Babri structure was pulled down by Hindu zealots when PV Narasimha Rao was Prime Minister. Some critical chapters of the story prior to this fateful event must be erased from memory. For example, it should never be known that the doors of the Sri Ram Temple at Ayodhya were unlocked when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. Further, his disservice to the country’s secular order and core constitutional values in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's judgement in the Shah Bano case must never be told.



Nor should it be known that Rajiv Gandhi searched for desperate measures to win back the support of the Hindu majority prior to the Lok Sabha election in 1989 and, therefore, despatched his Home Minister, Mr Buta Singh, to attend the shilanyas for the construction of the Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. In other words, the Rajiv Gandhi Government gave its tacit approval for the construction of the Ram Mandir and even participated in what was essentially a foundation-laying ceremony.



Yet, the Congress would like the country to believe that Narasimha Rao, who was Prime Minister in 1992, was solely responsible for the build-up of the Hindu movement and the fanatical enthusiasm of Kar Sevaks to demolish the structure that was standing in the way of the proposed temple. Historians and intellectuals who have received the patronage of this family have been working overtime to hide these facts about Rajiv Gandhi’s involvement both in regard to unlocking the temple and the shilanyas ceremony.



The same network of committed intellectuals has once again been deployed by the Congress and the family which has proprietorial rights over it, to do a cover-up of the Bhopal scandal. Citizens beware!

[Guest]

Talking about the Family vs Sarkari, here is an interesting read. I googled this to read about MMS for a BRF discussion.



http://books.google.com/books?id=QEaDKgz...&q&f=false



Sonia & MMS have been flattered and worshiped in this book, so take it with a pinch of salt. But it gives some insights on these people's minds.

[Guest]

pioneer.com

Nehru says Govt must come clean

Pioneer News Service | New Delhi

PM sets 10-day deadline for GoM report



As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday directed the newly-constituted Group of Ministers (GoM) to submit a report to the Cabinet within 10 days, disclosure made by former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s close aide Arun Nehru that Warren Anderson had met the then Home Minister and the President of India before leaving the country has raised fresh questions about the role of the Centre in release and escape of the former Union Carbide chief.



Arun Nehru, former Minister in the Rajiv Gandhi Government, told TV channels, “After being released, he came in a State aircraft to Delhi. He saw the Home Minister (PV Narasimha Rao) and he saw the President (Giani Zail Singh) — this is an event which took place and it is much better to clarify. The only one who can clarify is the Government.”



At a time when the Congress is facing all-round attack on why Anderson was released after being arrested on December 7, 1984, five days after the Bhopal gas tragedy, Nehru’s disclosure has compounded its problem. The Government will certainly be required to place the relevant records of Anderson’s meeting with the President to clear the air on what transpired between the two.



In another TV interview, Nehru also said that Anderson also might have met the then foreign secretary. “He met the Home Minister and then he met the President. And then, what the media is speculating about... indicates that it is the Foreign Secretary of the time ...whether he was involved or not, I don’t know...whether he arranged the interviews with the Home Minister and the President, I don’t know. That is for you to find out. But the fact is... Anderson by what happened on the December 7 and 8 was not considered a criminal at that stage. So this is what logic indicates,” Nehru said.



The questions are also being asked if Anderson had been allowed to move from Bhopal because of law and order situation, as claimed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, why he was not put under arrest elsewhere in the country.



Raising this point, BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy said at a Press conference here, “We understand that Anderson needed to be taken away from Madhya Pradesh. There were other States where he could have been taken. What was the need to send him abroad?”



Rudy said it would be impossible to believe that Anderson left the country without the knowledge of the then External Affairs Minister, a portfolio held by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.



Rudy also said there were reports that[size="5"] Gandhi had received a communication from the US President on ensuring safe passage to Anderson.[/size]



There were reports that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was unhappy with Rajiv Gandhi’s name being dragged into the controversy and wanted the Government to take urgent steps to settle the matter. This is what might have led the Prime Minister to set such a short deadline for the GoM to come up with its report.



According to an official statement, the PM has asked the GoM, constituted to look into all issues relating to the Bhopal gas leak disaster, to take stock of the situation arising out of the recent court judgement and to assess the options and remedies available to the Government on various issues involved.



This is the first time that a GoM has been asked to submit a report within 10 days on such a sensitive issue. Obviously,[color="#FF0000"] the Government wants to use the GoM to clear the air on the role of then Congress Governments in the State as well as Centre[/color] in allowing Anderson flee the country.



According to sources, besides giving a healing touch to the sentiments of the victims who have been deeply hurt by the Bhopal court judgement, which awarded a two-year sentence to the eight officials of the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL), [color="#FF0000"]the GoM would also look into the ways of paying early compensation to the victims[/color].



Ever since the Bhopal court announced the verdict, the case has got mired in several controversies - [color="#FF0000"]from the escape of Anderson to the dilution of charges against the Union Carbide officials by the Supreme Court to the lowering of compensation amount[/color].



Seemingly, to keep Rajiv Gandhi’s name from getting dragged into any controversy, the Congress leaders have built up a chorus to indicate that then Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh was responsible for giving Anderson a safe exit. Former Chief Justice of India AM Ahmadi is also finding himself in the thick of a storm for not only watering down the charges from 304-II to 304A IPC but also decreasing the compensation amount from Rs 1,000 crore to about Rs 470 crore.



Meanwhile, the BJP attacked the Congress for its criticism of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s demand that the UPA Government must come clean over the Bhopal gas tragedy.



“I do not think it is wrong to ask the Congress president and the Congress Government to reveal ‘maut ke saudagar’ (merchants of death) behind the Bhopal tragedy,” Rudy said.



He wondered what prompted Congress spokespersons to “howl” when Modi “questioned the silence” of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and the Congress Government on the Bhopal issue.



“They have every right to come back with a statement, but they cannot exhibit their desperation because they do not have an answer,” Rudy said, insisting that whenever such a question was posed, there had to be an answer.



The main Opposition also demanded that the Group of Ministers should find out details of how a Chief Minister, using his discretionary powers, allowed Warren Anderson, an accused in the Bhopal gas leak case, to leave the State.

[ramana]

More important how did he leave the country! The CM might claim law and order issue in the state and hence he passed the person/prisoner to the Center! How he left from there is for the Center to answer. Note he was on bail.

[ramana]

Height of sycophancy!



http://www.politicsparty.com/unioncarbide.php



I wonder why he is so dramatic?



And not his tirade on BJP. the issue at hand is the escape of Anderson from India and he blames BJP! And lot of fake emotional statements.



Question what was BJP strength in Lok Sabha at that time? The Bhopal Judgement is an all Congress affair at both State and Center levels. And by Congress appointed Judges in Supreme Court.



What is Arjun Singh did release Anderson after orders from the Central govt? This is the most likely scenario. And Center was asked by US govt.

[ramana]

Games big corporations play

Games big corporations play

P. Sainath



Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power.



Over 20,000 killed. Over half a million victims maimed, disabled or otherwise affected. Compensation of around Rs.12,414 per victim on average on the 1989 value of the rupee. ($470 million or Rs.713 crore. And that divided among 574,367 victims.) Over a quarter-of-a-century's wait. To see seven former officials of Union Carbide Corporation's Indian subsidiary sentenced to two years in prison and fined Rs.1 lakh each. Not a single person from the far more responsible parent U.S. company punished.



Yet, the notion that the main injustice to Bhopal is the failure to extradite then UCC chief Warren Anderson from America is mildly ridiculous. Trying to evade the lessons the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster threw up on the tyranny of giant corporations is completely so. Well over two decades after its MIC gas slaughtered 20,000 (mostly very poor) human beings, Bhopal still pays the price of Carbide's criminality. (Evident from the long-term impact on the health of the gas-affected. And from the poisoned soil and water around the former Carbide plant.) While the Indian government's appalling Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill, if adopted, would give legal cover to such conduct across the country.



Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power. The ongoing BP spill in the Mexican Gulf — with estimates ranging from 30,000-80,000 barrels a day — tops off a quarter-of-a-century where corporations could (and have) done anything in the pursuit of profit, at any human cost. Barack Obama's ‘hard words' on BP are mostly pre-November poll-rants. The BP can take a lot of comfort from two U.S. Supreme Court judgments in the past two years.



The first of these came in 2008. That was in the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 — till then the biggest recorded (or admitted to) oil spill in history. Simply put, BP's blowout is recreating an Exxon Valdez every eight days or so. And has been doing that since late April. In the Exxon case, a jury in 1994 imposed penalties of $5 billion on the company. In 2006, points out Sharon Smith in an incisive piece in counterpunch.org, “an appeals court halved the punitive claim to $2.5 billion.” And in June 2008, “the Supreme Court reduced that amount by 80 per cent, to roughly $500 million — an average of $15,000 per plaintiff.” Exxon CEO Lee Raymond who fiercely fought the damages, retired with a $400 million package all for himself. While Exxon Valdez's victims, points out Smith, ended up with roughly the same amount — only, it was shared among 33,000 of them. That is about 10 per cent of the original award and roughly $15,000 per victim.



In September the same year, Wall Street's kleptocrats famously tanked the world economy. Their actions cost millions in America and elsewhere their jobs and livelihoods. Yet, U.S. CEOs took home billions in bonuses that very year. Even The New York Times felt the need to say in a lead editorial at the time: “Just weeks after the Treasury Department gave nine of the nation's top banks $125 billion in taxpayer dollars to save them from unprecedented calamity, bank executives are salting money away in billionaire bonus pools to reward themselves for their performance.” (In that election year, Big Oil also drummed up support for offshore drilling with this cheery slogan: ‘Drill, Baby, Drill.' What'll it be now? ‘Spill, Baby, Spill?')



This year, barely three months before BP turned the Gulf of Mexico into a sludge pond, the U.S. Supreme Court further strengthened corporate power with its ruling in the Citizens United versus Federal Election Commission case. As Ralph Nader put it: “With this decision, corporations can now directly pour vast amounts of corporate money ... into the electoral swamp already flooded with ... [corporate] dollars ... corporations can [now] reward or intimidate people running for office at the local, state, and national levels.” Mason Gaffney makes the point in the Counterpunch Newsletter that “The ideas behind this are that a corporation is a ‘legal person,' with all the rights [if not all the duties] of a human being; that, as such, it has a right of free speech; and that donating money is a form of speech.” So chin up, BP, there's still hope. Remember how many who make it to Congress and Senate get there on Big Oil's big bucks.



While on the BP spill, spare a thought for the victims of such disasters who are not American or white-skinned. As Foreign Policy in Focus columnist Conn Hallinan points out: “Nigerian government figures show there have been more than 9000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are currently 2,000 official spill sites.” But then, what are African lives worth?



Seven years after Bhopal, Larry Summers, then chief economist at the World Bank, wrote his infamous memo. This said, among other things: “Just between you and me, shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]?” Summers suggested that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.”



Summers was to later say that he was joking, being sarcastic, and so on. Few buy that pathetic plea. Still, he went on to become President of Harvard and is now President Obama's chief economic adviser. And his memo's logic holds in the real world. It is exactly what has happened since Bhopal.



The UPA's response to the Bhopal sentences shows the government's ethics to be as despicable as they were in 1984. To mourn Bhopal and ready the nuclear liability bill is a hypocrisy hard to match. Bhopal was a post-facto sell-out. With the nuclear liability bill, the government sells out in advance. Is it only governments that have something to hide from Bhopal 1984? Even at the time, newspapers gladly carried planted stories suggesting “sabotage by Carbide's workers” had caused the disaster. Four years later, a UCC-funded ‘study' claimed to prove that the disaster was caused by a disgruntled worker at the plant. Carbide also ensured it could not be sued in U.S. courts. In December 1985, some of India's great legal luminaries, including Nani Palkhivala, helped persuade U.S. courts that Indian courts were the appropriate forum to deal with the case. (With results that we now live with.) That spared Carbide the relatively much higher damages the U.S. courts might have imposed.<img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



Barely 10 years later, Enron emerged as the symbol of the new era of liberalisation. Top academics, ‘experts,' and columnists worked hard to tell us what nice guys the Enron mob were. All this, after much initial criticism of the Enron deal. The change of heart was possibly a transplant funded by tens of millions of dollars set up by that company to “educate” Indian opinion-makers, lawmakers, etc. Advertising, too, flowed freely. One famous newspaper started out very critical of Enron, only to switch to being one of its cheerleaders. Many others, too, did the same. I guess that kind of fund buys a lot of education. For Maharashtra and India, it bought disaster. The once profit-making State electricity board piled up millions in losses. The State, in turn, slashed money from welfare projects and services. Enron, fraud that it was, collapsed in the U.S., some of its top guns turning fugitives from the law. The mess remains with us. The one chance of evading disaster vanished when the Supreme Court threw out a petition against the Enron deal brought by the CITU and Abhay Mehta, and that was that. 8)



Meanwhile, Mr. Obama's rhetoric seems to have hurt British sentiments. The truth is that the U.S. has helped, even subsidised, BP in the past. In what Alexander Cockburn calls “the biggest bailout in history,” the CIA staged a now infamous coup in Iran in 1953 to get rid of Mohammed Mossadegh's government. The Iranian Parliament had by unanimous vote nationalised the exploitative Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Mossadegh was toppled. Installed in his place was “Shah Reza Pahlevi, the creature of the West's oil companies, with full tyrannical powers. The AIOC got back 40 per cent of its old concession and became an internationally owned consortium, renamed — British Petroleum.” The lists of corporate-sponsored coups in the third world would fill volumes.



All that the Union Carbide did and got away with in Bhopal is shocking. But not, alas, surprising. In the quarter-of-a-century since then, corporate power has only grown. Bhopals happen when societies privilege corporates over communities, and private profit over public interest. Curb corporate power, Indian or American, or it will rip you apart.



Remember too, that important thing Bhopal victims say over and over again: “we should see that this can never happen again.” However, we seem to be ensuring quite the opposite. The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Bill in its present form ensures that U.S. corporations causing any nuclear accidents on Indian soil will get away with minimal damages. A compensation now seen as a crime in Bhopal could be a legal norm in the future. Welcome back, Larry Summers.

I think the real fight is about the nuke deal. Ombaba wants to let the US corps make money/aka jobs and beat the recession by exporting to India. However the liability bill was a hinderance. He got MMS to shape the future but then some elements who felt betrayed by MMS hastened the Bhopal judgement. And turned the popular anger towards the Congress party culpability.

[Guest]

It is to get something from India in free and this is arm twisting.

[Guest]

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-had-assured-Anderson-safe-passage-Former-US-diplomat/H1-Article1-558066.aspx"]India had assured Anderson safe passage: Former US diplomat[/url]

The Indian government had assured "safe passage" to then Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson after he expressed a desire to visit Bhopal to demonstrate concern over the 1984 deadly gas tragedy, the former deputy chief of mission of the US embassy has said.



Now a visiting professor of economics at Emory University in the US, Gordon Streeb was the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in New Delhi when poisonous methyl-isocyanate gas leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant on Dec 2-3 night, killing nearly 3,000 people instantly and many thousands over the years.



Streeb recalled that Union Carbide contacted the embassy indicating that its chairman, Anderson, wanted to fly to India to see for himself what had happened and to show "concern for the victims" at the "highest level of the company".



"The issue was whether he would be guaranteed access to the site and eventual safe return to the US," Streeb told IANS in an e-mail, adding: "This was a reasonable precaution since legal systems differ so widely around the world."



With the ambassador, Harry G. Barnes, out of India, Streeb was liaising with the ministry of external affairs on the sensitive issue.



The ministry "advised that it would be a very welcome gesture if Anderson could come to India and that the government of India could assure him that no steps would be taken against him during his visit".



Anderson came to India and reached Bhopal with the plan to meet with the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh.



Instead, he was arrested on Dec 7 by the state police.

"I immediately contacted the foreign ministry and was assured the (that) government of India would honour its commitment to provide Anderson safe passage in and out of India," said Streeb in his communication to IANS.



Based on the Indian government's assurance, Anderson was brought to New Delhi and "departed on the next commercial flight back to the United States".

Streeb said that then foreign secretary, MK Rasgotra, had been his chief interlocutor during this period.



"I am in no position to comment on the decision making process within the government of India, i.e., who made the decisions referred to above and how Anderson's release was arranged," said Streeb, who is also member of the India China America Institute's advisory board.



While Arjun Singh has still not spoken publicly about the incidents, ministers have said that the decision to let Anderson leave Bhopal was strictly a law and order decision.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters in Kolkata on Sunday that Arjun Singh's Dec 8, 1984 statement on the reason for Anderson being sent out of Bhopal was due to the deteriorating law and order situation and because people's anger was "running high".

[ramana]

By hiding and keeping mum the GOI is allowing the US to set the record of what happened. Now the US diplomat is accusing India of going back on the word by arresting the UC chief! Also note MK Rasgotra is mum on the issue. No wonder the entire politcal class was acting like agents of new East India Comapny bahadur.

[Guest]

Don't forget, India Prime Minister is appointed NOT ELECTED.

Puppets are doing tap dance and appeasing bosses in West.

[Guest]

Blaming Rajiv on Bhopal not patriotic: Cong

pioneer.com

PTI | New Delhi

Reacting sharply to BJP's allegation that UCIL chief Warren Anderson could not have left the country without former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's knowledge, Congress on Tuesday said those levelling such allegation were not patriotic.



"Rajiv Gandhi or his government had nothing to do with it. It is baseless and cheap to insinuate that a Prime Minister, who had to sacrifice his mother just one and half month ago (before assuming his office) and then sacrificed his own life five years later for the nation's integrity, allowed somebody to escape out of the country under any pressure (from the US)," Party spokesperson Manish Tewari said.



Tewari added, "I do not think that those who are levelling such allegations have any patriotism left in them."



His comments came a day after BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said it would be impossible to believe Anderson left the country without knowledge of then External Affairs Minister, a portfolio held by Gandhi.

It seems, talking points are from USA.



Rajiv Gandhi = Bofor + IPKF + BrassT + Bhopal .......

[Guest]

[url="http://www.hindustantimes.com/Bhopal-fiasco-a-systemic-failure-need-to-address-it-Cong/H1-Article1-558652.aspx"]Bhopal fiasco a systemic failure, need to address it: Cong[/url]

"At the end of it there was a systemic failure and there is a need to address it...If we go into the game of finger-pointing, there can be no end. I can ask the BJP about Rs one lakh it received as donation from Dow as was reflected in the affidavit it filed before the Election Commission," party spokesman Manish Tewari said.

The comments of Tewari came on a day when TV channels reproduced the bytes of Anderson and Arjun Singh, before the UCC chief left the country on December 7, 1984, three days after the world's worst industrial disaster.



[color="#FF0000"]"House arrest or no arrest or bail, no bail, I am free to go home...There is a law of the United States...India, bye, bye, Thank you," Anderson had said.[/color]



Standing just outside the Union Carbide plant, Singh had said, "There was no intention to prosecute anyone or try to, sort of, harass anyone.



"Therefore, he (Anderson) was granted bail and he agreed to be present in court when the charges are made," the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister had said.

Asked about the statements and whether the Central government was aware of these, Tewari said, "I reject the conclusions with the contempt they deserve. There was never ever any intention of Central government to allow any culprit to go scot-free," he said.

The spokesman said a GoM has been constituted and it is looking into all aspects of the issue.



Tewari vehemently denied that then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had any knowledge about Anderson being allowed to leave, saying that imputing such motives was "despicable" as Gandhi had lost his mother a month ago and lost his life a few years down the line.

"We are all anguished by the verdict," he said.



Attacking the BJP for finger-pointing on the Anderson issue, Tewari asked why the then Attorney General had changed his opinion.



Tewari said in the last 26 years after the Bhopal gas tragedy, eight governments came at the Centre and pursued the case along with many national and international NGOs.

"After this, if the country feels and rightly feels so that justice was not done, it clearly points out it was a systemic failure and it needs to be addressed," he said.

Now Congress is saying move on don't blame Rajiv Gandhi, but when it comes to Modi, HANG HIM for ever.

[Guest]

enjoy comments from HT

U can address the problem congress style: Donot remove Sonia from the politics of India otherwise whole Govt will collapse. Donot let the BJP form Govt otherwise whole of India will collapse.Bring every one under Consumer laws except politicians or Babus and judiciary otherwise whole Indian infrastructure will fall apart. Immediate make payment for compensation from taxpayers money otherwise economy will collapse, Make minister and PM as God like creatures and nothing will happen to India and America other western Govt will be happy and peaceful.

[Guest]

Compare Bhopal, India tragedy with BP, USA rig leak.



In Bhopal, thousands died immediately and millions died slowly and millions are still suffering. Then corrupt Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi let Union Carbide gets away and dragged whole thing in courts, whatever little compensation was decided, politicians from center to state, all belongs to Congress Party whose current President is Sonia Gandhi had that loot.

In Gulf, BP leak. Only 11 people died, water is now sticky and birds and fish may die, people can't enjoy shrimp and fish for some years from Gulf, people can't do sun tan on warm beaches of Gulf this summer vacation.

What US government did, without court they forced BP to put $20 Billion now for clean up and job loss, later they will suck more, and don't forget class action law suits are still coming.



Compare US President action and India Prime Minister/Congress Party?



Same Congress Party is protecting looters and its own skin by blaming others who were not even near power to make any decision.

And shame on people who elect these low lives.

[Guest]

[quote name='Mudy' date='16 June 2010 - 02:56 PM' timestamp='1276714129' post='107004']

What US government did, without court they forced BP to put $20 Billion now for clean up and job loss, later they will suck more, and don't forget class action law suits are still coming.

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Like BP will pay, I'm sure UC paid. Only difference is the payment went directly to politicians and babus. BJP had 2 seats in '84 LS elections, Rajiv had absolute majority and Cong ruled the state too. 26 years later here we are still figuring out what happened? If people are naive enough to question who/what/how much, I have bridge to sell them.