City Of Bhopal Research Articles

The incidence of end-stage renal disease in India: A population-based study

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) are emerging public health problems in developing countries, and need changes in health-care policy. ESRD incidence data are not available from large parts of the developing world including South Asia. We report the ESRD incidence in a large urban population in India. ESRD incidence was estimated for four consecutive calendar years (2002-2005) among 572 029 subjects residing in 36 of the 56 wards of the city of Bhopal. These subjects are beneficiaries of free health care in a hospital established after the 1984 Union Carbide Industrial Accident. Crude and age-adjusted incidence rates were calculated. A total of 346 new ESRD patients were diagnosed during the study period; 86 in 2002, 82 in 2003, 85 in 2004, and 93 in 2005. Average crude and age-adjusted incidence rates were 151 and 232 per million population, respectively. The mean age was 47 years, and 58% were males. Diabetic nephropathy was the commonest (44%) cause of ESRD. This study provides the first population-based ESRD incidence data from India and reveals it to be higher than previously estimated. Diabetic nephropathy is the leading cause of ESRD. Changes are required in health-care policy for optimal care of CKD patients and efficient resource utilization for management of those with ESRD.

BHOPAL'S WOUND

THE BHOPAL DISASTER OCCURRED in 1984, but its drama is still playing out in India. The old Union Carbide site has not been properly cleaned up, residents living near the site complain of contaminated water, and no consensus has emerged on what to do with the land. The population of the surprisingly pleasant city of Bhopal, located more or less in the center of India, has more than doubled since 1984 to 1.4 million. Where Carbide operated is now a prime site surrounded by vibrant, though mostly poor, residential neighborhoods. In early December, on the 21st anniversary of the tragedy, activists in Bhopal organized demonstrations, memorials, and effigy burnings of former Carbide chairman Warren Anderson. The general message was that Dow Chemical, which acquired Union Carbide in 2001, has to clean up, or pay for a world-class cleanup, of the old industrial site. We want justice, says Satinath Sarangi, managing trustee of Bhopal's Sambhavna ...

Bhopal disaster—a personal experience

Bhopal Gas Tragedy was the worst industrial accident in the world where several thousand persons lost their lives. It occurred at the Union Carbide plant located inside the city of Bhopal and close to the railway station, at midnight of December 2-3, 1984 due to the leakage of MIC gas which took the local sleeping and floating population unawares. This paper describes the experience of a transit passenger who reached the Bhopal Railway Station by train at about the same time when the deadly gas leakage occurred.

Twice Poisoned Bhopal: Notes on the Continuing Aftermath of the World's Worst Industrial Disaster

In one horrifying night and through the long misery of nearly eighteen years of injustice that have followed it, the city of Bhopal in India can be said to have experienced the head-on impact of world historical and political economic processes. In 1969, Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) set up a plant to manufacture the pesticide Sevin in Bhopal, with the permission and, indeed, the encouragement of the Indian government. This was the heyday of the Green Revolution, introduced in India in the mid-1960s and based on HYV (high-yielding variety) seeds, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and vastly increased irrigation. The disastrous social and environmental consequences of this technological choice (made by Indian planners,This was done at least partially in order to avoid the political vulnerability that dependence on imported foodgrains might bring. Marshal Windmiller, conversation with one of the authors. with backing from international agencies such as the World Bank and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations) are well documented,See, for example, Vandana Shiva, Violence of the Green Revolution (New York, 1991). but it is not always remembered that the Bhopal gas tragedy has its roots in the same narrative. The design of the Bhopal plant, as well as the policies relating to its maintenance and operation, were in keeping with the double-standard often applied by transnational corporations in their Third World outposts, where environmental, worker, and community safety issues may be seen as less pressing than at home.For detailed accounts of the corporation's disregard for safety standards at the Bhopal plant, see David Dembo, Ward Morehouse and Lucinda Wykle, Abuse of Power. Social Performance of Multinational Corporations: The Case of Union Carbide (New York, 1990), 87–91; Ward Morehouse and Arun Subramaniam, The Bhopal Tragedy: What Really Happened and What It Means for American Workers and Communities at Risk (New York, 1986), 2–8; Ruth Norris et al., Pills, Pesticides and Profits, (Croton, NY, 1982).

Empowerment of Women: The Case of Mahashakti Sewa Kendra

This paper examines how a group of women from the city of Bhopal, in India, experienced the process of empowerment. Two events, unconnected with each other and separated by 8 years, played a significant role in mobilizing these women, These were the gas leak disaster of 1984, when the poisonous gas fumes escaped from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal and the communal conflict of 1992, when riots erupted in many parts of India. This study explores the methods and strategies adopted by the individual women as well as by a women's organization, Mahashakti Sewa Kendra (MSK), in forming a group for community action and helping themselves. Beginning from a position of extreme weakness, through a delicate process of awareness building and group formation, urban women in the shantytowns and slums of Bhopal realized that their deprivation was changeable and they had alternatives choose from.

Water Quality Management: Strategies for Conservation of Bhopal Waters

The city of Bhopal is crowned with lakes and reservoirs, which are major sources of potable water, recreational activities and aquaculture. These reservoirs are under great environmental stress due to agricultural run offs, human encroachments, siltation and growth of aquatic needs. In order to maintain Upper lake as a healthy water- resource for drinking purposes, lower lake as a recreational ground for boating, water games, tourism and surface transport and Shahpura reservoir as a pisciculture station, an attempt has been made to formulate certain measures, that can cure the already spoilt lakes and check the water sheds from getting eutrophicated.

Union Carbide out of India with Bhopal sale

An important chapter in the history of the chemical industry ended on Sept. 9 when Union Carbide completed the sale of its 50.9% stake in Union Carbide India Ltd. (UCIL). The sale was to McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. Sale price, after bidding by several companies, was reported by Carbide at about $90 million. The Indian government is expected to approve the sale by the end of the year. With this sale, Carbide ends all financial involvement in India. Carbide will always be remembered in India for the Dec. 3, 1984, leak of methyl isocyanate that killed between 3,000 and 4,000 people and injured 150,000 or more in the central Indian city of Bhopal. The numbers are still being debated, and financial relief, even now, has been slow in coming to the victims. The Bhopal plant, which made pesticides, never reopened. The sale includes the Bhopal plant and all other assets of UCIL, which is largely ...