Talk:Bhopal disaster

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[edit] Contents matching the title

It seemed to me that this article and the discussion was more like online trial of Union Carbide, providing little information on the details of the disaster itself. IMHO, article on "Bhopal disaster" should write about the disaster and criminal details of Union Carbide responsibility should be discussed under "Bhopal disaster - Union Carbide responsibility". I tried to improve this by adding a nest egg for the info on actual details and timeline of this magnificent and instructive disaster.

[edit] Point of View

This article is horribly biased. It ignores basically all views of Union Carbide and dismiss them basically as corporate propoganda. The editing was obviously done from a non-neutral point of view and only neutral sources should be used on an article like this. The neutral view is just as ugly for Union Carbide, however.

I agree with the user above. The background section reads like a Greenpeace pamphlet. It doesn't mention any of the numerous warnings that Union Carbide made to the plant. It doesn't mention that Union Carbide was not the controlling owner, the Government of India had control. It doesn't mention that Union Carbide was not allowed to hire their own employees, or make changes to the plant. Many warnings and breaches of the agreement were ignored by the Indian Government, and the Indian Government refused to release funds, refused to accept Union Carbide's help in immediate medical aid and money before motions for a lawsuit had even begun. Union Carbide suffered greatly from this risky venture, and certainly must bear some blame, but a great deal of the severity, and perhaps the likely cause of the incident was the Indian Government. This needs to be discussed. Saying things like it was preventable is conjecture, and the current article is full of it. Again, there is plenty of blame to go around, but blaming the minority owner over the majority owner seems blatantly biased. Nmjw 17:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I am unaware of the claims you made above. Can you give some credible sources for your claims? --Incman|वार्ता 06:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Incman. Here in India, everybody knows that it was UCIL to blame for, not the Govt. of India. Do you think that, in a working democracy(and that too, in India), the government can cheat the people and get away with it? All claims of UC are ignored because they are indeed corporate propaganda. How else do you explain Warren Anderson not appearing before the courts of India, if his company is indeed innocent? And why would he go into a luxurious life of hiding after the incident? And, about the Indian government operating the plant, who told you that big fat lie? Can you quote ANY credible source? If the Indian government is indeed to be blamed for, why didn't the UCIL file countersuits in Indian courts against the govt., to prove its innocence? And can you explain the tardy compensation that was paid to the survivors? What would they have paid had this happened in the US? The arguments raised by Nmjw do not seem at all credible, so removing the POV tag. Instead, the unsourced tag can remain. The article needs citations for better credibility. rohith 16:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Also added the Unbalanced tag, that would better address the concern of the user who added the POV tag. rohith 16:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Update: Union Carbide's Bhopal.com site states that

The Bhopal plant was owned and operated by Union Carbide India, Limited (UCIL), an Indian company in which Union Carbide Corporation held just over half the stock.

So much for allegations that the plant was being operated by the government. Removing the unbalanced tag, thus. rohith 16:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

It would not matter if Union Carbide owned over half of the stock if it was not involved in day to day operations. Stock owners are protected by anything that happens to their company. It is called the Corporate Veil. Plus 60 percent of the people living outside of the UCIL factory were illegal and if the government had done their job and moved them, this disaster would have had 60 percent less fatalities and injuries.

[edit] Accident/Act of sabotage

Wiki/BBC say Bhopal was an accident but the Union Carbide website says it was an act of sabotage. Which is true?

Holden 27

Hmmm, who am I more incline to believe? The giant corporation who has a huge stake in disclaiming responsibility or a reputable independent news organization? Funkyj 20:04, 2004 Dec 2 (UTC)

DOW has now accepted responsibility, according to Reuters. -Wikibob | Talk 11:14, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

No. In a bulletin less than an hour later: [[1]]

TroelsArvin 12:01, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wow, that was an elaborate hoax, it sure caught me! -Wikibob | Talk 12:10, 2004 Dec 3 (UTC)

According to all the 200 references I have read, the most likely reason to the leakage is that two workers cleaned the lines without using a slip bind. There is no evidence for sabotage, and UC also at one point admitteted there isn't. I Eckerman [2]

What are "slip-bind water isolation plates"? Bastie 23:30, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

_______________________________________________

BTW, In India the even is commonly referred to as the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. When people talk about Unio Carbide and Bhopal, they call it the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, not the Bhopal Disaster. CAn you undo the name change?

[edit] Title notes

Moved this from Bhopal Disaster to Bhopal disaster to meet Manual of Style conventions. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 06:24, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC) Is this title really the best possible? Two reasons: it is not a tragedy in the classic sense of the term, but only in the popular (mis)conception of the meaning and it does promote a POV. There are those who might not characterize this as a tragedy, and since it's not really accurate anyway, I think it should be moved to Bhopal disaster or something. Unless it really is what the incident is frequently referred to as, which I don't think is true. Tokerboy 01:06 Nov 7, 2002 (UTC)

"Bhopal Disaster" would probably be better, though I think the above complaint comes about 30 years too late. For better or worse, "tragedy" now means "sad event" to most people. Tempshill 18:37, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Nice work you're doing on this article, Tempshill. While you're at it, I think you should definitely move it across to Bhopal Disaster (7600 hits on Google) from Bhopal Tragedy (only 2600). Just in case you needed a push... –Hjr 19:16, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Agrees. Wherever the blame lies, it is no doubt an industrial disaster, and should be categorised as such. chance 04:30, Dec 5, 2003 (UTC)

"Be bold", they said. So I was. Page moved. –User:Hajor 04:48, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Dow Chemical Co accepts full responsibility

- Proof? - rernst 14:42, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC) Former content was:

According to Reuters [3], on the 3rd December 2004, Dow Chemical Co, in a major policy reversal, accepted full responsibility for the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India; a company spokesman, Jude Finisterra, was quoted as saying:

"Today I am very, very happy to announce that today, for the first time Dow is accepting full responsibility for the Bhopal catastrophe; this is a momentous occasion. We have a $12 billion plan to finally at long last fully compensate the victims including the 120,000 who may need medical care for their entire lives and to fully and swiftly remediate the Bhopal plant site. We have resolved to liquidate Union Carbide, this nightmare for the world and this headache for Dow and use the $12 billion to provide more than $500 per victim, which is all that they've seen."

This story is untrue, BBC released a statement later on 3 December 2004 that the statements are false and that there is no $12 billion dollar deal.

[edit] Worst disaster in the history of the world?

The case is definitely very severe, but do we have a source on it being the world's worst?

No, it is not the worst disaster in wold history. For that you would probably want to be looking at rivers flooding in china over the last couple centuries, or, depending on whether you want to call them "disasters" or not, WWI and II.

As far as I understand, it is the world's largest INDUSTRIAL disaster - that depends on how you define Tjernobyl. I Eckerman [4]

[edit] Cite, please

The section "Overview of the disaster" mentions eleven "contributing factors", all of which are apparently officially denied by Union Carbide, in favor of a "disgruntled employee" scenario. What is the source for the list of contributing factors mentioned? - 24 November 2005

[edit] Witness Accounts

Moved "Witness Accounts" here for possible copyvio. This is apparently from [5]. That page says, "No part of this site should be used in any other media without prior permission."

We should consider whether

A) We should use this text

>> (answer): No, firstly I did not take the text from "newindpress.com", but from blog archive of Bishwanath Ghosh [6]. Secondly, I already have the explicit permission from Bishwanath Ghosh himself to use his publication on Bhopal tragedy in Wikipedia (can be reached via bishwanath_g@yahoo.com)

B) Such eyewitness accounts are appropriate in an encyclopedia article.

>> (answer): All information we have originates from human observation. If there is consensus among several observations of the same thing, meta narratives can be created to summarize and generalize the observations from detached viewpoint. Such meta narratives are supposed to be free from the influence of the original observer, but they too are composed by the same humans as the original observers; usually the closer to the original observation, the better. Still, I think that the neutral answer to the question whether eyewitness accounts are appropriate would be that they cannot stand in place of the encyclopedic meta narration ("objective description"), but they can serve the role of a "textual picture", as long as they are true and representative. If you have a reason to believe that the eyewitness account by Mr. Ghosh is misleading, say so. Before inserting this eyewitness account, the article didn't answer the question what the disaster was really like for the victims or what made it different from e.g. Chernobyl disaster apart from the difference in name. By inserting the witness account, I did not remedy the need for encyclopedic description, I only augmented the information value of the article. I welcome you or anyone else to make the encyclopedic description, rather than just pressing delete button over my contribution.

(my sig after text)

-- Writtenonsand 15:24, 25 January 2006 (UTC) >> (answered by Kokot Kokotisko)

[edit] Death Toll?

How come the number of people killed is not listed on this page? That's a pretty important detail. LearningKnight 17:17, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

The death toll I found seems accurate but I'm not sure if it is consistent with the other articles on wikipedia.raptor 03:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DowEthics.com

Hello, I am doing a project on Bhopal as an engineering failure for my Engineering Design class.

When I went to dowethics.com and clicked on the link for bhopal.com it popped up a window that tried to launch a denial of service attack on bhopal.com. I am unsure as of the legality of this action, but I thought that it should be brought to people's attention. Should a disclaimer be put next to the link?

HuckbeinMK3 22:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)HuckbeinMK3

OK... I am kind of new to editing so I hope I am doing everything right. Anyway is it just me or does this artical SERIOUSLY need to be brought into line with the NPOV policy? The thing reads like it was written by someone from "International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal". Also enough with the quotes from those people... The fact that one group (not to mention one with an agenda) seems to be regarded as the only reliable source for this artical is disturbing... I have come to expect more from Wikipedia :( Duncan St. Ives 17:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing Section "Anti-Capitalist and Eco-Socialist Analysis"

I am removing the entire section "Anti-Capitalist and Eco-Socialist Analysis" as having no place in this article. It is not merely the fact some "American academic, psychoanalyst and eco-socialist" has no reason to be presented to the reader as any kind of authority on this matter; but this/his kind of propagandistic interpretation is profoundly at odds with the rest of the article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Hi There (talk • contribs) 03:31, 15 January 2007 (UTC). Forgot to sign, sorry! Hi There 03:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name of article

Not sure if this has been pointed out, but the title of the article 'Bhopal disaster' is rather ambiguous - what would happen if another disaster struck? Would it be named "Bhopal disaster II"? Perhaps appending a year to the title would be better? Sfacets 12:00, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Following Duncan St. Ives' comment, there continues to be a lot of content on this page directly culled from the ICJB's website, and it has been edited into a sort of call-and-response, much directly pulled from the http://bhopal.net/bhopal.con/ The seemingly weak credibility of this site makes it a poor footnote, especially in the amount that it is used throughout the article: some of the content is out of date, and all is strongly POV. I feel like the ICJB's criticism should be kept primarily in the "Criticisms" section, instead of having them running throughout the article. Jemather 20:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

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