My other writings
Cricket 24 x 7
Jaagruthi
Yahoo! 360
Mayajaal
My Bloglines
My 43 things
My LinkedIn
On Orkut
Badri's Tamil thoughts
Ganesh's Happily Haphazard
Nitin's Acorn
Prabhu's Pethals
Raghu the reluctant Delhiite
Samanth's blahg
Sankhya the busy idler
Srini the movie critic
Rabble Rousing Random Ramblings by S Jagadish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Breaking news: Supreme Court to deliver Bhopal gas disaster judgment in 2084
Yesterday, a local court in Bhopal convicted the 7 accused in the Bhopal gas tragedy case, sent them to jail for 2 years and later gave them bail.
In response to a question at a press briefing on whether there was a formal extradition request for Warren Anderson (the then CEO of Union Carbide), the USA's Department of State said
Well, as you say, Goyal, this tragedy happened 26 years ago, and it was a terrible tragedy, one of the worst industrial accidents in human history, and we certainly hope that the verdict brings some closure to the families of the victims of this tragedy.In other words, we don't give a damn about what you want.
But just as we were talking about earlier, last week, we had a strategic dialogue with India. Our countries are closely connected. Our economies are increasingly closely connected. So I certainly would hope that this particular case does not inhibit – or the continuing expansion of economic, cultural, and political ties between our two countries. And I have – we fully expect that this will not be the case.
This then presented a wonderful opportunity for the Indian media to go berserk, pointing out 'double standards' by the USA government when it came to the British Petroleum oil spill and the Bhopal gas tragedy.
So, while British Petroleum will be forced to pay up billions of dollars in penalties for the damage caused to the environment & businesses, victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy would get something like Rs. 50,000 each in addition to the pleasure of living with the after-effects of the gas poisoning.
Yet, they're missing a major point.
The US is stalling or denying requests for Warren Anderson's extradition because it wants to protect it's citizen from criminal proceedings in a different jurisdiction.
In contrast, India's governments settled for a compensation of USD 470 million, around 14% of the original claim of USD 3.3 billion. Warren Anderson was let off on bail, and there's no chance he's going to enjoy a holiday at Agra (except in disguise perhaps). It is unknown how many palms (belonging to politicians, investigators, policemen & bureaucrats) were greased.
India's legal system watered down the charges from culpable homicide to criminal negligence. It seems like 'Tort law' is a foreign concept for the Indian judicial system.
It took over a quarter-of-a-century to deliver a verdict, in a local court at that! There's no doubt that both parties will appeal.
I expect that the appeal will reach the Supreme Court by 2050, and a final judgment will be delivered close to midnight on 2 December 2084, commemorating the centenary of the disaster.
When our governments and courts can't protect our citizens, why should we complain if other governments stand up for their citizens, regardless of whether the accused is at fault or not?
Labels: accident, bhopal, farce, india, judgement, legal, supreme court
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - |
Too early to cheer for 'queer'?
Yesterday, in a judgment that undoubtedly was significant, the Delhi High Court de-criminalized consensual sexual acts of adults in private
We declare that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalisesThere are two implications from this ruling:
consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution.
The provisions of Section 377 IPC will continue to govern non-consensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex involving minors.
- Homosexual acts between consenting adults are no longer criminal acts and the parties involved cannot be booked under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code.
- Non-vaginal sex (oral, anal, masturbation, etc.) is also not criminal as long as it is between consenting adults.
The decision could still be appealed in the Supreme Court. The government could in all likelihood not appeal against the decision. However, when morons and mobs belonging to various 'religious' and 'cultural' groups/political parties decide to take matters into their own hands as part of protesting in the name of "Indian culture and values", and if the judiciary asks the government what it's going to do to stop the violence, the government could easily point out that this was all because of the court's decision taken without factoring in the implications.
Further, all that the judgment does is to de-criminalize private homosexual activity between consenting adults. Does that necessarily make it legal? For e.g., "Not guilty" doesn't mean "innocent".
The last word on this is probably a few years away. Was it Lao-Tzu or Confucious who said "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"?
Labels: homosexuality, ipc, judgement, landmark, queer, section 377
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - |
Just what the doctor didn't order for Pakistan
Pakistan's Supreme Court today barred Nawaz Sharif from contesting elections and also declared as null and void the election of his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of the Punjab province.
Obviously, the PML (N) isn't going to take this lying down and there have been huge & widespread protests all over Pakistan.
The Sharif brothers haven't accepted the authority of the current judges because they were sworn in by Pervez Musharraf under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) issued in November 2007.
There are a couple of interesting aspects of this whole drama which seem inexplicable.
- After Musharraf's coup on 12 October 1999 (to present a study in contrast with India, where a day later, Vajpayee was taking oath after a general election), he forced judges to re-take oath under a new PCO since the constitution had been suspended. Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was among the first few judges to take oath. Further, after taking office at the Supreme court, he was among the 12 judges who validated Musharraf's coup and pronounced that Nawaz Sharif's removal was legal. He then convinced the then president to resign, which resulted in Musharraf becoming president. He was also party to the supreme court's decision to dismiss petitions questioning Musharraf's constitutional amendments.
So why on earth was Nawaz Sharif fighting for reinstating him? - Nawaz Sharif returned to Pakistan in late 2007 after striking a deal with Musharraf, ending a 7 year exile in Saudi Arabia. So, Nawaz Sharif was perfectly ok with an agreement with Musharraf, but not ok with judges appointed by Musharraf! If, as Nawaz Sharif had always held, Musharraf's coup was illegal, then the agreement reached with Musharraf was also illegal.
It is currently going through a severe economic crisis (it needs something like USD 14 billion even after recently getting a USD 7.6 billion loan from the IMF even as it's "all-weather friend", China, offered no help during Asif Ali Zardari's recent visit). It is getting hammered for the deal with the Tehreek-e-Taliban in a portion of Swat and letting Dr. AQ Khan off scot-free. There's tremendous pressure from India (and to a disappointingly lesser extent, from other countries whose citizens were also murdered) over ensuring that the government took action on those responsible for the terror attacks in Mumbai last year.
Seems like the US National Intelligence Council assessment 4 years ago could turn out to be accurate after all!
Labels: judgement, nawaz sharif, pakistan, politics, supreme court
Did you like the post? [ Subscribe to the blog feed - |
Some of the links may now be broken/not take you to the expected report since the original content providers may have archived/removed the contents.
All opinions expressed are mine alone. My employers (past, present or future) are in no way connected to the opinions expressed here.
All pictures, photographs used are copyrights of the original owners. I do not intend to infringe on any copyright.
Pictures and photographs are used here to merely accentuate and enhance the content value to the readers.
