Word: bhopal
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When India has broken through the legacy of its storybook history, it has emerged in Western consciousness as the land of assassination and religious riots, of chemical disaster in Bhopal and the nuclear-arms race with Pakistan. Or, more trivially, as the land of tandoori chicken and the Nehru jacket. India's reputation has also suffered, at least among Americans, from the country's professed detachment in conflicts between the U.S. and the Soviets, and the frequent appearance of a political entente between New Delhi and Moscow. Says Festival Coordinator Niranjan Desai of India's embassy in Washington...
...rise in product-liability lawsuits, notably in the case of the Dalkon Shield intrauterine birth control device, has resulted in ballooning insurance rates for manufacturers. And Union Carbide's Bhopal disaster, which prompted more than $100 billion in lawsuits, has helped make toxic-pollution insurance virtually impossible for most chemical companies to obtain...
Compared with the misfortunes of Union Carbide, Job had it easy. The company's problems began nearly a decade ago with a profit slump that has persisted ever since. Then this past December came the leak of methyl isocyanate gas from a plant in Bhopal, India, which killed 2,500 people and provoked more than $100 billion in lawsuits. Last month Union Carbide fell deeper into trouble when a toxic leak in Institute, W. Va., sent 135 people to the hospital and prompted an additional $88 million in suits. Now Union Carbide faces a potential assault by corporate raiders...
...most important questions facing the company has nothing to do with business. It is the location of trials for the lawsuits growing out of the Bhopal disaster. If the cases are heard in the U.S., the company may have to pay at least $2 billion and possibly $6 billion or more in settlements. But if Union Carbide wins its plea to have the trials held in India, where liability payments would be much lower, the cost could be $500 million or less...
...Bhopal litigation is expected to dwarf those disputes. Approximately 2,000 people were killed and 200,000 injured by the lethal cloud of methyl- isocyanate gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant (which the company last week announced will never reopen). "The worst industrial disaster mankind has ever known," charged Robins Zelle's formal complaint. India is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of itself, the victims and "future generations of victims...