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Article

30 Jun 2010

Author:
Infochange

Global double standards: BP oil spill vs Bhopal gas tragedy

Indian commentators have highlighted the contrast between the US response to the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, in which BP has been forced to pay USD 20 billion, and the response to the Bhopal gas tragedy in which a US company paid out a paltry USD 470 million in compensation for 20,000 dead, thousands more injured, and a city poisoned...analysts say, the   Bhopal disaster reeks of the humiliation of a poor and powerless country   at the hands of a rich and resourceful Western corporation...Peter Glover, a British writer on international   affairs, specialising in energy issues, says it’s all about politics   and money...Indian commentators have taken the BP   comparison further, arguing that the Obama administration cares more   about fish and birds in the Gulf of Mexico than it does about Indians   maimed by an American company. But the onus, others argued, lies with   the Indian government...The victims will get hardly 10% of   the money and rest will go to the pockets of ministers and bureaucrats,”   Satinath Sarangi of Bhopal Group for Information and Action, an advocacy   group, says. “The Indian people have to pay for the crimes committed   by the US corporations.”

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