The Bhopal Gas Tragedy has been one of the worst incidents in the history of India, right up there with the unpunished anti-Sikh riots of 1984, and the Gujarat anti-Muslim riots of 2002. The gas attack, in the dead night of early December 1984, had a personal connection for me. My dad had been in Bhopal for a official visit, just leaving a day before; a close call for us, but not for the thousands who perished from the effects of the gas in the first few days after the tragedy. This is a tragedy that has affected many hundreds of thousands as well, those who did not immediately suffer a fatality in the aftermath of the tragedy, but who were affected due to the effects of the gas, and suffered a series of health problems that have lasted till this day, and who will continue to suffer the effects for long periods after. And yet, they can be called a forgotten generation. After all, were it not for the recent court case that awarded a measly 2 year punishment to many office bearers of the company at the time of the gas attack, who would have said a word about a tragedy that struck 26 years back ? In fact, just the fact that it took 26 years for the judicial process to grind to a decision about criminal culpabilities is itself a grotesque tragedy.
One benefit of the recent controversy has been a discussion about what are the rightful next steps to take for resolving the tragedy. For long, the factory (still present, with whatever contaminant still keeps on seeping into the soil) remains on the ground, and there had been no discussion on how to clean up the place (and one of the major steps in any industrial disaster is the clean up process of an industrial disaster); the recent discussion has been about how to setup a process to clean up the disaster area (even though there are disputes about whether it will be the central Government or the state Government that will be responsible for the cleanup process). There is also a realization that the compensation given earlier was inadequate, but the current debate overall the proposed new compensation policy is also riven by dispute, and there is a worry that there will be enough red-tape in the entire process that a number of people affected by the tragedy will continue to not get the required compensation.
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When an accident happened in October 2008 in the Metro construction in East Delhi in which one of the sections of the under construction metro collapsed, killing 2 people, it seemed like a one-off thing. It was still a major shock for the Delhi Metro project, since the corporation believes that it is one of the safest and most reliable project executors in India. However, it was clear for the people living in areas where the metro was being constructed, that no matter how important the metro was to the overall transport situation in Delhi, there were some compromises being made so that the main projects can be ready in time for the Commonwealth Games. For example, on some of the ongoing metro line construction, the proud claim of the DMRC that they would ensure that roads would remain tip-top was no longer true. Roads that the Metro corporation built after removing their barricades were not level with the current roads, and had ditches and potholes; in a couple of cases it would seem that the DMRC put barricades long before work was being started. Now, for a huge majority of construction areas, DMRC was still much better than the other construction agencies such as PWD, CPWD, etc, but it was clear that their quality levels were starting to slip.
One reads in the newspaper all the time about some accident whereby a person gets injured due to rash or negligent driving by the driver of a vehicle (in numerous cases, this rash driving would be done by the driver of a bus or truck, and because of the size and weight of this large vehicle, the injuries would be serious, or even death could occur). In such cases, a person (or his dependents) can claim compensation from either the driver / owner of the vehicle, or from the insurance company that had provided insurance to the vehicle. Such claims need to be filed under the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal, which assesses the loss of employment income along with extent of injury and accordingly provides compensation (some compensation is also provided in the cases where the fault of the driver cannot be proved). These cases can also be taken to higher courts if either party is unsatisfied with the award of the Tribunal (link to article):