Lets continue to light Candles and offer Prayers - The Bhopal Gas Tragedy!

I could not believe myself when i heard about the news. Somebody help me! which of the following is a shocking news?

1. Lethal gas "METHYL ISOCYANATE" leaked from Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) on Dec 2-3, 1984 night killing thousands instantly and many more later or
2. Officials of Union Carbide were on Monday convicted only for criminal negligence, which is punishable with a maximum of two years in jail.

Sick with the damn CHEAP indian judicial system. The victims and the activities are completely fooled by some jokers in the Magistrate court. The Magistrate court in Bhopal on Monday convicted all eight Indians accused in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy case. A Rs 500,000 fine has been imposed on UCIL. The seven convicted include former top brass of Union Carbide, Mahindra, Vijay Gokhale, J. Mukund, S.P. Chaudhary, K.V. Shetty, Kishor Kamdar and S.I. Quireshee. Another accused, R.B Chaudhary, died during the 23-year-long trial. Union Carbide eventually sold its shares in the subsidiary company, which was renamed Eveready Industries India.

The charges were also all bailable and with the prime accused in the case - former Union Carbide (USA) chairman Warren Anderson still on the run and unlikely to present himself in Indian court, there is little hope that justice will be served. India's court system is badly burdened by corruption, incompetence and a lack of resources, making it easy to stall a case for many years. On Monday, even top Indian judicial officials acknowledged the system was in trouble.

On Monday, Union Carbide in a statement on its website said the company and its officials were not subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian court since they did not have any involvement in the operation of the plant, which was owned and operated by UCIL. Union Carbide was bought by Dow Chemical Co. in 2001. Dow says the legal case was resolved in 1989 when Union Carbide settled with the Indian government for $470 million, and that all responsibility for the factory now rests with the government of the state of Madhya Pradesh, which now owns the site.

At this juncture let me share something interesting that i read on the net recently.....

Comment: Had the gas tragedy happened in US or China
Consider this: An Indian company called the Union Carbide of India sets up a chemical factory in the US through a US subsidiary called the Union Carbide of the US. A disaster occurs and over 15,000 people are killed. What would the US government have done?

A. Arrested the chairman and directors of the Union Carbide of India, try them as expeditiously as possible and give them the toughest punishment. If they were not available in the US, the government would have put pressure on the Indian government and seen to it that the culprits are extradited, even if there was no policy to speak of.
B. Almost declared a war on India, slapped harsh economic sanctions, denied intellectual access to technology, snapped cooperation on the economic front.
C. Stopped all cooperation talks, strategic dialogues and snapped defence deals.
D. To spike India, US would have aided Pakistan with mouthwatering deals, including the latest armaments.

Had this happened in China, the officials would have been arrested and shot dead, no questions asked. Of course, this may seem too harsh.
Had this happened in the UK or France, the world would have condemned India and Indian companies and ended all trade deals.

What ever that happened guess what is next from here? Dr. Mahmohan Singh and his cabinet will be travelling to US to ***k the a** of the Obama and likes!

Learning something once a while! - "Sword of Damocles"

The Sword of Damocles is frequently used in allusion to this tale, epitomizing the imminent and ever-present peril faced by those in positions of power. More generally, it is used to denote the sense of foreboding engendered by a precarious situation especially one in which the onset of tragedy is restrained only by a delicate trigger or chance.

The Damocles of the anecdote was an excessively flattering courtier in the court of Dionysius II of Syracuse. Dionysius was a fourth century B.C. tyrant of Syracuse, a city in Magna Graecia, the Greek area of southern Italy. To all appearances Dionysius was very rich and comfortable, with all the luxuries money could buy, tasteful clothing and jewelry, and delectable food. He even had court flatterers (adsentatores) to inflate his ego. One of these ingratiators was the court sycophant, Damocles. Damocles used to make comments to the king about his wealth and luxurious life. One day when Damocles complimented the tyrant on his abundance and power, Dionysius turned to Damocles and said, "If you think I'm so lucky, how would you like to try out my life?"
Damocles readily agreed, and so Dionysius ordered everything to be prepared for Damocles to experience what life as Dionysius was like. In the evening a banquet was held where Damocles very much enjoyed being waited upon like a king. Damocles was enjoying himself immensely... until he noticed a sharp sword hovering over his head, that was suspended from the ceiling by a horse hair. Immediately, he lost all taste for the fine foods and beautiful women and asked leave of the tyrant, saying he no longer wanted to be so fortunate. This, the tyrant explained to Damocles, was what life as ruler was really like.
Damocles, alarmed, quickly revised his idea of what made up a good life, and asked to be excused. He then eagerly returned to his poorer, but safer life. Dionysius had successfully conveyed a sense of the constant fear in which the great man lives.

"Judge no one happy until his life is over" is a familiar theme in Greek and Roman philosophical writing

Life is like that!

BJP's victory - Press Statement by Shri Lal Krishna Advani

After the BJP’s decisive victories in the Vidhan Sabha elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh towards the end of 2007, I had stated that 2008 would turn out to be a ‘Year of Change’ in national politics. My affirmation has been vindicated by the triumphant performance of the BJP in the Vidhan Sabha elections in Karnataka.

I sincerely thank the people of Karnataka for giving a mandate to my party. I also heartily congratulate the state unit of the BJP and Shri B.S. Yedyurappa, under whose leadership the party contested the elections, for this victory. This is a verdict against the Congress party’s politics of opportunism and the JD(S)’s politics of betrayal.

However, the Congress party would be indulging in self-delusion if it thought that the people of Karnataka were influenced only by local factors. The UPA government’s utter failure to control the prices of essential commodities, its soft and compromising policy on terrorism, and its insensitivity towards the plight of kisans have angered common people all over the country. This is evident from the Congress party’s defeat in almost all the Vidhan Sabha elections held since May 2004.

I have no doubt that my party’s triumph in Karnataka will prove to a turning point comparable to the quantum increase in parliamentary strength that the BJP achieved in 1989. It will be recalled that the BJP won 86 seats in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections compared to only two seats in 1984. Thereafter, the BJP’s victory march became unstoppable and led to the formation of the BJP-led NDA government in 1998. It also ended the Congress’ one-party domination at the Centre and transformed India’s polity into a bi-polar system.

Nearly 20 years later, another turning point has arrived in the challenge put up by the BJP to the hegemony of the Congress. Whereas earlier our party’s growth was due to its ability to form governments in northern and western states, and also, later, in Orissa and Bihar in the east, now for the first time we are in a position to form government in a southern state. This geographical expansion of the BJP, and the simultaneous shrinkage of the Congress party almost all over the country, shows the shape of things to come in the run-up to the next parliamentary elections.

New Bangalore Airport opens for traffic

The much-awaited Bengaluru International Airport finally opened late on Friday to commercial operations, with an Air India Airbus A320 (IC 609) from Mumbai being the first to land at 22.37 pm, carrying about 110 passengers and crew.The same aircraft took off as IC 957 to Singapore 15 minutes into Saturday (00:15 IST), with 80 per cent of its capacity (144 seats) filled. Captain Ishwar Pal and co-pilot Gourav Jaggi were behind the controls of the Airbus to cruise for 210 minutes and land at Singapore by 06:15 local time.

The Rs 25-billion ($625 million) greenfield airport is situated at Devanahalli, about 40 km from India's IT hub. It is surrounded by greenery and farmlands, with the historic Nandi Hills forming the backdrop. The airport inauguration was delayed three times before it finally became operational.There were several protests against the privately built airport because of its distance - about 35 kms from the city centre, at the end of a road that already routinely gets jammed with traffic.

The new airport has been built in record 36 months under public-private partnership to handle about 10-12 million passengers per annum till 2012. The consortium consists of Unique Zurich Airport, Siemens Project Ventures and Larsen & Toubro (L&T) as private promoters, while Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Karnataka government as state-owned promoters.