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The Bhopal gas tragedy essentially marked the beginning of mass tort jurisprudence in India. When the US courts dismissed the consolidated lawsuit resulting out of the Bhopal disaster and returned it to India for judicial determination, the Indian legal system was confronted with one of the biggest challenges it had ever faced. The difficulty arising out of the unprecedented extent and intensity of the event was compounded by a lack of prior experience of the Indian legal system in dealing with mass tort cases. Bhopal brought out the inadequacy of the then-prevalent traditional common law of tort in dealing with the legal challenges posed by the case, thus, underscoring the need for modifying the existing tort law doctrine. The most significant modification introduced to the Indian tort law in the wake of Bhopal was the dissolution of public-private law divide through the invocation of the doctrine of parens patriae and the enunciation of the principle of absolute liability. The primary thesis of this paper is that the rationale and need underlying this dissolution of public-private law divide can be well understood in the light of critical social scientific studies on risk. As the concept of risk is inextricably linked with anthropogenic mass disasters, the critical epistemologies of risk provide strong empirical and normative foundations for the development of a distinct mass tort jurisprudence, much needed in today's post-modern 'risk society'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been claimed that the high accident rate in the chemical process industry is due to poor dissemination of accident knowledge that affects directly the level of learning from accidents. In response to this situation, this paper utilized past accident knowledge as a basis to develop a safety oriented design tool whereby the accident information were directly disseminated into plant design. The method was developed based on our previous accident analysis of design error in which the common design errors were ranked in accordance to their frequency and its origins during normal plant design project. Based on the design error ranking and its origin at a specific design phases, a method for design error detection is proposed. The method is expected to be able to identify the possible design error and its causes throughout chemical process development and design. The main objective is to trigger safe design thinking at the specific design phases so that appropriate action for risk reduction could be timely implemented. The Bhopal and BP Texas tragedies are used as case studies to test and verify the method. The proposed method can detect up to 74% of design errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bhopal disaster was a gas leak incident in India, considered the world's worst industrial disaster happened around process facilities. Nowadays the process facilities in petrochemical industries have becoming increasingly large and automatic. There are many risk factors with complex relationships among them. Unfortunately, some operators have poor access to abnormal situation management experience due to the lack of knowledge. However these interdependencies are seldom accounted for in current risk and safety analyses, which also belonged to the main factor causing Bhopal tragedy. Fault propagation behavior of process system is studied in this paper, and a dynamic Bayesian network based framework for root cause reasoning is proposed to deal with abnormal situation. It will help operators to fully understand the relationships among all the risk factors, identify the causes that lead to the abnormal situations, and consider all available safety measures to cope with the situation. Examples from a case study for process facilities are included to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. It also provides a method to help us do things better in the future and to make sure that another such terrible accident never happens again. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As amply reported, after Bhopal disaster process safety got a boost worldwide and risk analysis got applied more generally. Even if the concept of inherent safety, strongly promoted by Trevor Kletz, represents one of the main lessons from this tragedy, in the first part of the paper we focus on Bhopal mitigation measures representing the ultimate relevant layer of protection. Starting from a technical analysis of the whole safety equipment of the plant and relevant empirical evidences, we face the short-cut design of critical safety devices suitable to mitigate release effects. The applied method allows a preliminary design and management tool to evaluate the effectiveness of safety systems and the impact on surroundings. In the second part, we develop an empirical-based framework allowing to identify emergency actions and intervention time and demonstrate how the implementation of these safety measures when reaching a critical pressure of 10 psig in Thnk 610, even under the condition of protective equipment out of commission, would have surely mitigated such a high profile tragedy. The paper illustrates the determining contribution to this tragedy of such deficiencies in the safety procedures for handling abnormal situations and emergencies by the company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bhopal disaster is an important milestone in Indian Industrial Psychiatry. The disaster was not only the biggest industrial disaster but also one in which complex forces have joined hands to demy the mental health needs of the population. Though the biggest general population epidemiological study over 5 years was carried out to understand the mental health impact of the disaster, the findings of this study did not get reflected in mental health care for the population. Furthermore, the needed longitudinal studies and evaluation of the interventions were not undertaken. There was no sharing of information with the survivors about the impact of the disaster on their health and well-being and sharing of skills for self-care. A result of these factors is the extreme degree of dissatisfaction in the population. Looking back, it would have met the needs of the Bhopal population, if the mental health services were community based and reaching the population, rather than the clinic-based approaches, there was a wide range of services, especially rehabilitation, continuous research into the changing mental health needs of the population and the effectiveness of interventions and most importantly, there was a continuous dialogue with the population and sharing of information with the general population. These are the tasks for the immediate future to reorganize the focus of mental health initiatives in Bhopal. Many lessons can be learnt from the Bhopal disaster and the continuing tragedy for the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the 1984 Union Carbine pesticide plant disaster that occurred in Bhopal, India in 1984. Topics include the preservation of the memory of the victims, how the Indian government reacted to the industrial disaster, and how the disaster is discussed in India in 2015. Information is provided on corporate liability.

The article focuses on the struggle for social justice in India after the 1984 Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster that occurred in Bhopal, India. Topics include social justice within India, corporate accountability for industrial disasters, and the organization of social movements in India. Information is provided on environmental law in India.

The article focuses on the Indian media's portrayal of the 1984 Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster that occurred in Bhopal, India and its impact on the prosecution for the disaster. Topics include justice administration in India, corporate liability for industrial disasters, and the political economy of the media in India.

The article focuses on the prosecution of those responsible for the Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster that occurred in Bhopal, India in 1984. Topics include the registration of Crime No. 1104/84 after the gas leak occurred, criminal justice administration in India, and corporate responsibility for industrial disasters.

The article focuses on the gas relief hospital system employed in Bhopal, India after the Union Carbide pesticide plant disaster that killed 5,000 people due to the inhalation of methyl isocynate (MIC) gas in 1984. Topics include the health effects of the gas on survivors, the ongoing morbidity in Bhopal due to gas exposure, and hospital infrastructure in Bhopal.

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including the 1984 Union Carbide (UC) pesticide factory disaster in Bhopal, India, the regulatory system in India, and water contamination laws in India.

In 2008, survivors of the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster in India undertook a 500-mile march to New Delhi, protesting a long history of governmental neglect of the survivors of the event. This is one episode of a 25-year-old organized international campaign that continues in the present. This article examines the ways in which three bodily substances – blood, hearts and ketones – were produced and circulated through the 2008 protests. Placed within a broader history of substance-politics in the region, this article suggests that these protests produced an imagination of bodily substances that surfaced messy contradictions that became difficult for the Indian State to disregard. This article also shows how these protests distanced themselves from the cynicism attached to similar modes of corporeal activism in the contemporary Indian landscape. In sum, this article traces the production of an activist corporeal counter-discourse that, for at least a time, contaminated the procedures through which the Indian State disregards the health of its marginal citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This experimental essay is a documentary–fiction account of two research trips undertaken in 2010 to Bhopal, India, and Bridgehampton, USA, by a photographer called Smith and an anthropologist called Willing. Their purpose was to investigate the social, cultural and environmental aftermath of the 1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, with a view to proposing ways in which the disaster might be exploited for commemorative, educational and entertainment purposes. Smith and Willing enumerate here on the ways in which photography and ethnography, as well as the disaster’s ‘materiality’ – its routes and objects – could be used to generate a disaster tourism event in both Bhopal and Bridgehampton, the home of Union Carbide’s former CEO, Warren Anderson. Part fantasy, part political and cultural critique, Bhopal to Bridgehampton also represents a meditation on authorship and the limits of the autobiographical gesture in ethnography. While their experiences are loosely based on some of the author’s own, Smith and Willing are emphatically fictional characters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: There is a vital need to understand details of the methylisocyanate (MIC) release that occurred at the 1984 Union Carbide Ltd. pesticide plant in Bhopal, India in order to avoid or respond to such releases in the future. However, we believe there are serious deficiencies in currently available dispersion predictions of the impact of toxic materials on humans and animals downwind of the plant. Specifically, cloud densities have been underestimated due to failure to account for the presence of a liquid/solid aerosol that would have been produced by the chemical reactions that caused the problem. Using data reported in Union Carbide''s own investigation of the accident, which included chemical reaction data, we estimated aerosol compositions and cloud densities, then modeled the Bhopal release, simulating potential exposure levels at various locations under a number of wind-condition scenarios. For the worst-case (low wind speed and high aerosol densities), our predicted MIC concentrations at ground level are at least one order of magnitude greater than any previously published estimates. The centerline elevation of the jetting plume released at 33m elevation is predicted to rise to about 41m before falling, resulting in a 40ppm (Immediately Dangerous to Life or Health, IDLH) concentration contour that reaches the ground at about 410m downwind of the release location. This is consistent with observations that the plant environs were not hard-hit while the public immediately downwind of the plant perimeter was severely exposed. Concentrations on the order of 1000ppm are predicted at some ground-level locations, which are more consistent than previous estimates with the reported large numbers of deaths and injuries of humans and animals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article discusses responsibilities of the Olympic Games organiser International Olympic Committee (IOC) while determining the sponsorship money for the London Olympic Games. It reflects on corporate sponsorship and social responsibilities of the business in this regard. It highlights the criticism raised against IOC for associating with Dow Chemical Co. which was involved in an unresolved dispute concerning business and human rights, the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 in India.

A stability analysis is presented of the hydrolysis of methyl isocyanate (MIC) using a homogeneous flow reactor paradigm. The results simulate initiation of the thermal runaway that occurred inside the storage tank of MIC at the Bhopal Union Carbide plant in December 1984. The stability properties of the model indicate that the thermal runaway may have been initiated at a large amplitude, hard thermal oscillation at a subcritical Hopf bifurcation. This type of thermal misbehavior cannot be predicted using conventional thermal diagrams and classical ignition theory, and may be typical of liquid thermoreactive systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Isocyanates and di-isocyanates are used in the production of various chemicals and materials, such as pesticides and polyurethane. However, since the disastrous accidental release of isocyanate in Bhopal in 1984 this class of toxic compounds has been under scrutiny, with growing interest in means to respond to isocyanate release. The susceptibility of isocyanates to nucleophilic substitution [D.P.N. Satchell, R.S. Satchell, Chem. Soc. Rev. 4 (1975) 231] and the known nucleophilicity of NaX [Yang, et al., Microporous Mesoporous Mater. 92 (2006) 56; Doetschman, et al., Microporous Mesoporous Mater. 92 (2006) 292; Kanyi, et al., Microporous Mesoporous Mater. 108 (2008) 103] led to this study of a spectrum of isocyanates representing cyclic and aromatic isocyanates, di-isocyanates, 1°, 2°, and 3° isocyanates, and alkyl chain isocyanates of various lengths. Additional experiments were done in order to understand the nature of a tightly bound chemical adduct product that forms in the isocyanate reactions with the zeolite. The isocyanate functional group was shown to be susceptible to nucleophilic attack by Faujasite NaX. A carbamate framework adduct, with the anionic nitrogen stabilized by the sodium cation is proposed. The product is very tightly bound to the zeolite. In two, but not all, isocyanates in which there are methyl protons β to the isocyanate moiety, an elimination reaction took place to form the α, β olefin, competing with the nucleophilic addition reaction. The types of chemistry occurring and the tenacity with which the products are retained, suggests that zeolites may have practical applications in hazardous materials cleanup or controlling isocyanate vapor release. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Health planners and managers make decisions based on their appreciation of causality. Social audits question the assumptions behind this and try to improve quality of available evidence. The method has its origin in the follow-up of Bhopal survivors in the 1980s, where "cluster cohorts" tracked health events over time. In social audit, a representative panel of sentinel sites are the framework to follow the impact of health programmes or reforms. The epidemiological backbone of social audit tackles causality in a calculated way, balancing computational aspects with appreciation of the limits of the science. Social audits share findings with planners at policy level, health services providers, and users in the household, where final decisions about use of public services rest. Sharing survey results with sample communities and service workers generates a second order of results through structured discussions. Aggregation of these evidence-based community-led solutions across a representative sample provides a rich substrate for decisions. This socialising of evidence for participatory action (SEPA) involves a different skill set but quality control and rigour are still important. Early social audits addressed settings without accepted sample frames, the fundamentals of reproducible questionnaires, and the logistics of data turnaround. Feedback of results to stakeholders was at CIET insistence - and at CIET expense. Later social audits included strong SEPA components. Recent and current social audits are institutionalising high level research methods in planning, incorporating randomisation and experimental designs in a rigorous approach to causality. The 25 years have provided a number of lessons. Social audit reduces the arbitrariness of planning decisions, and reduces the wastage of simply allocating resources the way they were in past years. But too much evidence easily exceeds the uptake capacity of decision takers. Political will of governments often did not match those of donors with interest conditioned by political cycles. Some reforms have a longer turnaround than the political cycle; short turnaround interventions can develop momentum. Experience and specialisation made social audit seem more simple than it is. The core of social audit, its mystique, is not easily taught or transferred. Yet teams in Mexico, Nicaragua, Canada, southern Africa, and Pakistan all have more than a decade of experience in social audit, their in-service training supported by a customised Masters programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Many major accidents due to toxic release in the past have caused many fatalities such as the tragedy of MIC release in Bhopal, India (1984). One of the approaches is to use inherently safer design technique that utilizes inherent safety principle to eliminate or minimize accidents rather than to control the hazard. This technique is best implemented in preliminary design stage where the consequence of toxic release can be evaluated and necessary design improvements can be implemented to eliminate or minimize the accidents to as low as reasonably practicable (ALARP) without resorting to costly protective system. However, currently there is no commercial tool available that has such capability. This paper reports on the preliminary findings on the development of a prototype tool for consequence analysis and design improvement via inherent safety principle by utilizing an integrated process design simulator with toxic release consequence analysis model. The consequence analysis based on the worst-case scenarios during process flowsheeting stage were conducted as case studies. The preliminary finding shows that toxic release consequences analysis tool (TORCAT) has capability to eliminate or minimize the potential toxic release accidents by adopting the inherent safety principle early in preliminary design stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The worst chemical industrial disaster occurred in Bhopal, India at a pesticide plant on the night of 2-3 December 1984 killing approximately 2500 people immediately and many more subsequently as a consequence of the toxic effects of the methyl isocyanate released from the plant. The main toxic effects were observed on the lungs, the eyes and on reproductive health. A wide spectrum of lung diseases varying from obstructive airways disease to interstitial lung fibrosis has been reported to occur in the gas-exposed subjects, many of them leading life as respiratory cripples. Corneal opacities and early onset cataracts in younger populations were also observed. There was a high incidence of spontaneous abortions and still-births in gas-exposed pregnant women and there were also significantly higher perinatal and neonatal mortalities in the affected areas. Many gas-exposed individuals suffered from psychiatric disorders. There is inadequate compensation to the victims considering the severity of the recognised consequences of the disaster. The punishment meted out to the guilty can be considered trivial in relation to the adverse human outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the corporate crime and harms of Union Carbide Corp. after the great factory disaster in Bhopal, India. It mentions that the disaster was a reminder of how the unregulated corporate power can make a huge devastating impact on human, animals and the environment. The company was believed to commit a corporate crime for it has done illegal acts with greater economic, physical and social costs. It states that the company has hidden its failings, held vital information and spread its blame to the state and corporate governance after the disaster. Scholars suggest tightening of regulation, implementing new criminality polices and increasing penalties to prevent future catastrophes.

The article offers information on the aftermath of the Union Carbide Corp. factory disaster in Bhopal, India on December 4, 1984 related to political aspects, and its condition after 25 years. It states that the disaster was considered the first real disaster of globalization. It mentions that the legal systems of India and the U.S. has its own way to settle the civil and criminal aspects of the disaster. Arguments have occurred mentioning that the judicial proceedings should be done in American courts, and the Indian government represent itself as the victims of the disaster.

The article discusses the lessons which could have been learned after the Union Carbide Corp. factory disaster in Bhopal, India. It mentions that the aftermath of the disaster teaches about basic respect for life, the importance of life over profits and preparation for any disaster to happen in the future. It states that one must know the cause of the disaster in order to prevent a repeat of the disaster. It notes that the society was unprepared to cover up rehabilitation for the victims, and were unprepared to administer punishment to the culprits. It mentions the simple lessons that can be learned from the disaster, and these are using well-tested processes, building hazardous companies far from residential areas and assisting worker and social complaints about pollution.

The Bhopal chemical disaster of 1984 added the issue of chemical plant safety to the variety of health and environmental harms already associated with the globalization of the production and use of toxic chemicals. This article describes the highlights of international and national responses to the Bhopal disaster by intergovernmental organizations, national regulatory authorities and transnational corporations. It suggests that these policy responses have not succeeded in preventing the continued occurrence of toxic chemical incidents that impact on the health, environment and livelihood of those affected. The article argues that attention needs to be paid to toxic chemical production and use in public health debates, nationally and at the global level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most analyses of the Bhopal disaster have focused on the management decisions leading up to the disaster on 3 December 1984. This article examines the evolution of the global movement for justice in Bhopal that arose following the disaster. Recent developments in the study of transnational social movements are employed to identify the contributions that an analysis of the evolution of the struggle for justice in Bhopal can make towards greater understanding of global social movement organizing. Close examination of the ebb and flow of the movement's global ties offers new explanations for both its persistence and evolution over 25 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author offers his insights on the Union Carbide India Ltd.'s factory disaster in Bhopal, India. He discusses the administration of sodium thiosulphate (NaTS) as an antidote, recommended by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), to treat the survivors of the disaster. He reflects on the studies conducted by the Medico Friend Circle, one was a comparative study to indicate the symptoms of the exposed population, and the other was on the outcomes of pregnancy and abortion rates in the exposed population. He discourages the efforts of the state government to support the survivors, and the conflicts among leaders of support groups.

This article deals with the economic effects generated by different conflict rules on incentives of economic agents. In particular, we ascertain the rules currently in force at the domestic level, and subsequently analyze each of them from an economic standpoint. Namely, we focus our analysis on the following rules: the so-called lex loci delicti, the lex loci laesionis, the forum shopping and the forum non conveniens, the optio legis principle, and the rule of victim's freedom of choice. We exploit these rules to explain some famous cases, that is, the accident that occurred at the Bhopal plant its 1984 and the oil spill involving the supertanker Amoco Cadiz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bhopal gas tragedy is undoubtedly one of the worst industrial disasters in the history of mankind resulting in mortality of 2500-6000 and debilitating over 200 000 people. Inhabitants in the township were exposed to different degrees and there are more than 500 000 registered victims that survived the tragedy. Clinical studies have shown chronic illnesses such as pulmonary fibrosis, bronchial asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, recurrent chest infections, keratopathy and corneal opacities in exposed cohorts. Survivors continue to experience higher incidence of reported health problems including febrile illnesses, respiratory, neurologic, psychiatric and ophthalmic symptoms. In-utero exposure to methyl isocyanate in the first trimester of pregnancy caused a persistent immune system hyper-responsiveness, which was in an evident way genetically linked with the organic exposure. Recent experimental studies have provided mechanistic understanding of methyl isocyanate exposure at a molecular level. Immunotoxic implications, toxico-genomic effect, inflammatory response, elicitation of mitochondrial oxidative stress, chromosomal and microsatellite instability have been studied comprehensively in cultured mammalian cells. Besides providing a framework for understanding potential mechanisms of toxicity of a host of other exposures, these studies may also uncover unique abnormalities thereby stimulating efforts to design newer and effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. The authors recommend long-term monitoring of the affected area and use of appropriate methods of investigation that include well-designed cohort studies, case-control studies for rare condition, characterization of personal exposure and accident analysis to determine the possible elements of the gas cloud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The disastrous gas leak at a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, in December 1984 displayed the law's tragic inability to cope with the consequences of technological globalization. This essay describes the protracted efforts of the gas victims to obtain relief from courts in India and the United States and the reasons why the settlement of their legal claims did not satisfy their demands for justice. The victims' self-knowledge, whether scientific or social, found no traction in official medical record keeping or in courts of law. Their experience highlights the structural asymmetries of technology transfer across national boundaries. Union Carbide's technology of production moved from West to East with little hindrance and, in retrospect, with insufficient regard to conditions in Bhopal. By contrast, India's attempts to transfer legal accountability back to the exporting country proved essentially impossible, as American courts insisted that claims be resolved by Indian judges under Indian law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Finding the causes of an accident or operating problem and deciding what actions to take to prevent it happening again is rather like dismantling a set of Russian dolls (). Each time we ask “why?” (or a similar searching question) we find another cause besides the ones we have found already and another action (or set of actions) we can take to prevent similar accidents occurring again. Many investigators stop too soon. This occurred at Flixborough, at Bhopal and in the investigation of many lesser-known accidents. We are more likely to find the deeper causes and the more original actions if groups of people with wide interests and experience are able to take part in the investigations or discuss the investigation reports. We should never look at an accident report as “closing out” a problem. As we read it, we should ask ourselves, “what else could be done?” [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The present article utilizes the constructivist approach of International Relations (IR) to analyze the international normative impact of the Bhopal chemical accident, focusing on the constitutive role of the human action on the International Environmental Politics (IEP). It adopts an articulation of constructivist concepts, useful to visualize the structure in which the local event is embedded, as well as the social construction process of either the event and the international norm launched. The assumption is that a co-constitution relation between structure and agents, who are responsible for the social construction of the event, is preponderant and that, consequently, it is impossible to exclude these elements or their connecting links from the analysis. The article aims at understanding, on the one hand, the way in which the event is socially constructed, referring to the ideational and normative structure of environmental protection and sustainable development; and, on the other, how the local event produces political, social and normative impact at international level. As a result, the global features of local events become evident, specially considering the ideational and normative fulfillment of an environment consciousness, whose political milestones are the Stockholm 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment and the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro. Therefore, the article emphasizes the cultural and institutional environmental context as whole, pointing out the local/global relationship. It also focuses on the role of the International Labour Organization (ILO) as a leader agency in the chemical safety field, in an attempt to indicate why the normative construction process has taken place on the forum of that International Organization (IO). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning with a description of the Bhopal disaster, when a leak at the Union Carbide company killed thousands, this essay turns to the issue of the politics of discursive practices. The discussion focuses at first on a genealogy of environmental discourses— ranging from conservation to sustainability and then proceeds to a treatment of the way various dimensions of political economy constitute events of ethnic exclusion. The essay ends with a juxtaposition of traditional ethics and a politics of aesthetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the Bhopal gas tragedy that occurred in Bhopal, India, on December 2, 1984, in which 35 tons of toxic gas was released from a factory of Union Carbide India Ltd., the Indian division of the American multinational Union Carbide Corp. (UCC). Impact of the tragedy on human rights; Role of UCC in the tragedy; Compensation given to the victims of the tragedy; Failure of the Indian government and the government of Madhya Pradesh to issue notice to the UCC to follow industrial safety norms.

Focuses on the disaster that struck the Indian city of Bhopal in December 1984 which resulted from a gas leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant. Overview of the Bhopal disaster; Estimated number of casualties; Emphasis on corporate abuse by Union Carbide; Launch of grassroots struggles and demonstrations in India and around the world against the company.

The article focuses on the issues that revolve around the significance of public health towards the accidental release of methyl isocyanate gas from Union Carbide pesticide plant that has resulted to mass casualties in Bhopal, India. The disaster was triggered by various reasons such as failure of standard operating practices and engineering, lack of communication and surveillance, and policies and requirements by the Indian government. The incident has posed concern on industrial setting particularly health aspect of plant workers in third world countries who are exposed to hazardous substance and technologies.

In addition to dealing with all the pollution problems familiar to the West, India is still struggling with problems that are now virtually unknown in the industrialized world. Since the disaster at Bhopal, new legislation and the growing interest of grassroots organizations in environmental issues are a promising antidote to bureaucratic apathy.

Discusses the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA), a group of Indian activists working to support victims of the Bhopal disaster in India. History of the Bhopal disaster; BGIA support to the Bhopal Gas Affected Working Women's Union; Toxic gas leakage from a pesticide plant.

Uses a three-dimensional mesoscale model to understand the meteorological conditions and the influence of terrain on the local flow pattern during the methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas leak in Bhopal, India. Conditions of wind and stability in the lakes that influenced local circulation; Modified flow pattern resulting in transport of MIC into city area.

The article attempts to describe some of the chief features of the aftermath of the Bhopal, India, disaster, and draw some conclusions about the interaction of the Indian State with Union Carbide Corporation. As far as the legal case is concerned, it has scarcely begun, since the contentious issues of the appropriate judicial forum and the applicable laws of "discovery" have only recently been decided on, and the latter is still being appealed. For the uncounted thousands of victims, the tragedy is ongoing. The nominal gestures of relief and rehabilitation that the Madhya Pradesh government made have more or less stopped, and the shocking condition of the victims worsens, as the effects of a non-decontaminated environment and a non-detoxified people interact and accumulate. Bhopal offers a salutary lesson on the primacy and the enduring nature of social structures, and of the minority-oriented character of the State. The events of the aftermath of the disaster have led many groups working in Bhopal to charge that there is a collusion of interests between the State and Union Carbide, and that the State is minimizing the extent of the disaster in order to protect the interests of the company and its beneficiaries in government.

The article examines the actions taken by a large US chemical company, using the pseudonym Chemco, in the wake of the Union Carbide chemical disaster in Bhopal, India. This field study focuses on the decisions faced by executives in the handling and production of toxic chemicals, as well as the potential hazards and safety precautions involved, taking into account a low probability occurrence that could have catastrophic consequences. The authors are interested in analyzing the firms behavior using a conceptual framework based in organizational behavior and decision theory.