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December 15, 2007
And now IIT Delhi sends Dow back
Press statement
15 December, 2007. New Delhi -- Responding to the calls of IIT Alumni, students and supporters of the struggle for justice in Bhopal, IIT Delhi decided to return Dow Chemicals’ sponsorship for a three day International Conference organized by the Department of Chemical Engineering. The eleventh hour decision to bar Dow from sponsoring the event was taken after an Institute level meeting between the supporters of Bhopal gas survivors and the authorities at the Institute yesterday. The sponsorship amount is not known.
Last October, more than 1000 alumni and former faculty members signed a petition addressed to the directors of all IITs urging them to bar Union Carbide's owner, The Dow Chemical Company, from any partnership or role in the premier institutes. Learning of Dow’s plans to recruit from IIT-Madras, students and 22 faculty signed a petition urging the Director to bar Dow from recruiting on-campus. A similar petition was signed by more than 300 students and faculty in IIT-Bombay. Both IITs cancelled the pre-placement talks scheduled for Dow without giving reasons. Learning of the plans by the controversial company, IIT-Kharagpur decided not to invite Dow for recruitment. The Chemical Engineering department, which had sought sponsorship from Dow for a departmental cultural festival, decided against seeking support this year despite a paucity of funds. After considerable pressure was brought to bear on IIT Kanpur, the Mechanical Engineering department mysteriously withdrew Dow Chemical’s logo from its list of sponsors for a mid-December conference.
“IITs have sent a resounding response to Dow that they can keep their blood-tainted money to themselves,” said Magasaysay Award winner and IIT alumni Arvind Kejriwal. “The fun is just beginning. We are looking forward to stonewalling Dow at every step of its way. I’m glad our students and youth had more sense than the elders in the Government,” he said.
Dow Chemical’s recruitment plans in India have run into rough weather, with top-notch engineers shying away from Dow’s 10.5 lakh/year job offers because of Dow’s intransigence in the Bhopal matter. Many students and faculty also said that Dow was not only guilty of sheltering the fugitive Union Carbide from its Bhopal liabilities, but was also guilty of bribing Indian agricultural officials to license the pesticide Dursban that is banned in the US due to its harmful effects on children’s brain development.
Survivors and their substantial supporter base across the world have opposed the UPA Government's plans to write off Dow's liabilities in return for investments in India. School students in Chennai too recently began a campaign to evict Dow from an upscale shopping mall where it has a temporary office.
Contact:
Shalini Sharma, International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, 9891 44 2037
Posted by tim at 07:49 AM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2007
Evict Dow from Citi Center: Kids tell mall owners
Nity Writes...
Today at around 5 p.m., more than 50 children gathered inside the lobby of CitiCenter, an upmarket shopping mall set up on land that was forcibly acquired by evicting three dalit villages in the heart of Chennai. Dow Chemical has its office in the 6th floor of the mall. Last month, Bhopal survivor Rashida Bee had delivered a broom symbolising their anger at CitiCenter's insensitivity at accommodating Dow Chemical in their premises. The children held banners that announced their boycott of Citi Center and said they will mobilise more children and convince them against patronising Citi Center until justice is delivered in Bhopal.
With this action, the children of Chennai have opened a new front against Dow Chemical in India, with Prime Minister on the one side batting for Dow and the students and children of India on the other resolved to evict Dow from India.
PRESS STATEMENT
3 December, 2007. CHENNAI -- Marking the 23rd anniversary of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, more than 50 Chennai children aged between 12 and 16 gathered at the central lobby of the Citi Center mall to demand for the eviction of Dow Chemical from the premises. Dow Chemical, the new owner of Union Carbide, has an office in the 6 th Floor of the upmarket mall in Mylapore. Union Carbide, which was declared an absconder by a criminal court in Bhopal in 1991, was taken over by Dow Chemical in 2001. Dow has refused to produce Union Carbide in court, even while providing an avenue for Carbide to continue profiting from sales in the Indian market without threat of arrest. With the help of industry leaders like Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani, Dow has managed to win the favour of the Prime Minister's office which has promised to write off Dow's liabilities in Bhopal if the company invests heavily in India.
"We are ashamed of the Government of India's stance of welcoming Dow to the country, and want to make it clear to the residents of Bhopal that the people of India believe in their struggle, and the children of Chennai will not sit idle when Dow tries to go about business as usual," said Mansi Karthik, a 11th grade student who is spokesperson for Chennai for Bhopal.
In February 2007, Dow Chemical was fined $300,000 by a US Government agency for having paid Rs. 80 lakhs in bribes to Indian officials to license a pesticide that was banned in the US because of its harmful effects on children's brains. The company continues to market this pesticide which is called Dursban.
The children, many of whom are regular visitors to the Citi Center mall, said they will boycott the unethical mall and will encourage their other friends to do the same. "If the people in control of Citi Center have children, we believe they will take our actions in the right spirit and evict Dow from their premises," the children said.
The children also distributed pamphlets that alerted other shops in Citi Center that their neighbour – Dow Chemical/Union Carbide – was a murderer charged with the murder of more than 8000 people in the Bhopal disaster.
On December 3, 1984, a poisonous gas leaked from Union Carbide's underdesigned pesticide factory in Bhopal. At least 500,000 people were exposed to the poisonous gases that night. Union Carbide ran away to its home country, the United States of America, leaving behind thousands of tons of toxic wastes in and around its factory premises. The wastes have leached poisons into the groundwater. More than 25000 people consume the contaminated groundwater for want of a clean alternative. The incidence of birth defects and congenital deformities in the community is alarmingly high.
For more information, contact:
Mansi Karthik - 9884218018
Posted by tim at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2007
Bhopal Day program highlights pollution’s effects on kids
PRESS STATEMENT
2 December, 2007. CHENNAI -- Marking the 23rd Anniversary of the anniversary of the 1984 Union Carbide Bhopal Gas disaster, the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal held a public meeting with a difference focusing on children and pollution. Without any long speeches, the main medium of communication was through songs, villu paattu, street play and satire. Children of KRMM staged a play re-enacting the Bhopal disaster. Members of a cultural troupe from Kanchi Makkal Mandram launched the program with an impressive dance with the Parai, a percussion instrument identified now with the dalit assertion for rights. Youth for Social Change and theatre artiste Pritham Chakravarty performed a satirical awards ceremony in the name of Ettappan, an infamous traitor who betrayed Veerapadiya Kattabomman to British forces in 18th century. The awards ceremony honoured modern day sell-outs who are paving the way for the re-entry of Dow Chemical and Union Carbide into India. The key winners included P. Chidambaram, Manmohan Singh, Ratan Tata and Mukesh Ambani. Two undecided awards were also presented, one each of the Indian Institute of Technology and CitiCenter. Despite loud opposition by many IIT students to bar Dow from hiring on campus, IIT has refused to take a stance on the matter. CitiCenter continues to provide office space to Dow Chemical in Chennai.
Residents registered their shock and protest at the Tamilnadu Government’s decision to allow Union Carbide’s new owner Dow Chemical to set up business in Guindy. Currently Dow has an office in the 6th floor of Citicenter in Mylapore. “Dow has the dubious distinction of profiting from chemicals that rob children of their childhood,” said Sreedevi, principal of a Chennai school. In February 2007, Dow was fined $300,000 by a US agency for having bribed Indian officials to register three pesticides, including Dursban which was banned in the US due to its harmful effects on children’s mental development.
A growing body of evidence points to the influence of synthetic chemicals in everything from pregnancy outcomes, to the mental, reproductive and physical health of children.
The 1984 Bhopal disaster killed more than 8000 people. December 3 is also World Disability Day -- an occasion to take stock of our attitudes towards disabled people, to acknowledge their achievements, and most importantly to redesign our world to ensure that it is not discriminatory towards them. The links between Bhopal and disability are clear. The disaster left more than 70,000 people disabled. Even today, children in Bhopal are being born with serious congenital deformities and disabilities. Some are born to gas affected parents. Others are born to non-exposed parents who live near the Union Carbide factory and consume groundwater containing poisons that have leached out of the toxic wastes abandoned by Carbide. Increasingly, world over, mental and physical disabilities are being linked to fetal or childhood exposure to synthetic chemicals.
Today, even rich kids buy and use synthetic chemicals – in shampoos, fairness creams, household insecticides like mosquito sprays and termite treatment, and junk food. Children living near traffic junctions, kids working the garbage dumps – all have a shared environmental fate. To make our worlds safe for our children, we need to figure out how to make things differently, how not to make waste, and how to make do with what we have.
For more information, contact: Shweta Narayan: 9444024315 www.bhopal.net.
Email: nopvcever@gmail.com. International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal.
42A, 5th Avenue, Besant Nagar, Chennai 600 090
Posted by tim at 03:56 PM | Comments (0)