Open Letter to Jairam Ramesh

Documents of interest: Download the Technical Review of the reports published by NEERI and NGRI; Download the roadmap to remediation by Bhopal Survivor Organizations.

TO: Chairman, Bhopal Environmental Remediation Oversight Committee
and Minister of State, Ministry of Environment & Forests.
Paryavaran Bhavan, CGO Complex
Lodhi Road, New Delhi 110 003

August 05, 2010

Sub. Expert’s Technical Review of NEERI and NGRI Reports on the environmental contamination in and around Union Carbide’s abandoned factory site in Bhopal.

Dear Sir,

Enclosed please find a copy of the Technical Review of the reports published by NEERI, Nagpur and NGRI, Hyderabad by international experts on the contamination of soil and ground water in and around Union Carbide’s abandoned factory site in Bhopal. This is in accordance with the decision taken at our meeting on July 9, 2010 at Bhopal.

We look forward to your responses and ideas about moving this process forward so that the ongoing issue of environmental contamination can be meaningfully addressed with the urgency it deserves.

Thanking you.
Yours sincerely,

Dharna Blog

Day 16: Aug 10, 2010 - part 1 (Life at the Dharna) by A.R. Corwin

It's hard to tell from the photos the exact atmosphere of the Dharna. Sitting in Jantar Mantar on a humid day, only part of the area shaded by a nearby tree, where the temperature reached 97 degrees F/ 36 degrees C today - the humidity making the air heavy and your clothes stick to your skin. Food and water make the rounds through the crowd of sitting people ever half an hour or so.

The children run around and play until the heat takes their energy from them. Then they sleep, and their mothers and fathers fan them with newspapers. The older children pace around, listening to the adults and making toys out of whatever paper and string lie around. I have yet to hear a child at the Dharna complain. Despite the heat, the boredom, they wait patiently along with their parents and grandparents. The older participants of the Dharna sit in circles talking, sleeping, waiting all day. It's the ultimate test in patience. Despite the heat, these people continue to sit here - to make it known that they will be here no matter the weather and the boredom. Would they prefer to be in Bhopal, where the weather is about 10 degrees F cooler? Where it cools down to a nice 75 degrees F / 24 degrees C at night? Of course.

Dharna Blog

Day 14: August 8

The world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it. --Helen Keller

More than what I see in the physical presence of the dharna is what I try and understand about the feelings of the people who have been here at the dharna this year. I mostly wonder about their strength in dealing with suffering spanning 26 years. What is this hope that still has a spark of a child's eye. What is in the music that pulls up the oldest of the lot to dance and to cheer up the youth. What is in a huddle where women talk and girls play. And what is in the hope that has lasted two and a half decades and still continues to sit in an unreserved train compartment and travel for almost a day to reach Delhi every year.