Why This Book - Swaraj (Part-2)

A few days back when I read in the newspapers about the Nuclear Civil Liability bill being presented in our parliament then all fears seemed to come true. The bill proposes that if a foreign company sets up a nuclear facility In the country and if an accident  were to occur in the said nuclear facility then the
liability of the company is limited to Rs.1500 crore only. Whenever, an accident has taken place in a nuclear facility anywhere in the world hundreds have perished and that country has suffered losses
amounting to several thousand crores. For example estimates of Chernobyl nuclear accident in Russia are pegged at Rs. 11650 thousand crores (US $235 Bln) Here our parliament is ready to accept a meager sum of US $ 0.35 bln (Rs.1500 crore). In  the Bhopal Gas
leak tragedy 2000 people died and an estimated 578000 people were affected but Union Carbide, the company responsible for the same, paid a sum of Rs.2200 crore (US $ 470 million) only, that too after
twenty years of litigation. Compare this to Oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico where the Obama administration is demanding damages to the tune of  US $ 40-60 bln. (Rs.1800 thousand crore-2600 thousand crore) from British Petroleum. The best part is, there was no loss of human life in the oil spillage. 

A nuclear accident, therefore, would be like many Bhopal tragedies. Many clauses in the Nuclear Civil Liability bill also ensure that no criminal complaint would be lodged against the foreign company and no liability suit would be filed in any court of law.  There would be no police case registered and the company can go scot free after paying Rs.1500 crore only. 

After reading this law, it felt that the lives of citizens held no value to our law makers. It is evident that this law was    enacted by putting on wager the lives of its citizens for the benefit of foreign multinationals. Why is our parliament taking such decisions? It is certain that either it’s members are under some external pressure or some members or parties have been bought by foreign companies.

There are and were a lot of news items circulating  in the papers during the time of the Bhopal Gas tragedy. When the court decided the compensation recently, the senior members of political parties and government officers treated the chairman of Union Carbide as state guest and helped him flee this country.
Observing these things doubts arise in the mind 

• Is the country in safe hands? 

• Do we see our lives and our future safe in the hands of few of these political leaders and government officers”?  

It is not only that our Government is under the pressure of foreign powers and foreign multi national companies, but for money, political leaders and bureaucrats can do any thing. It has been observed that certain business houses have become absolute power centers. In a recent phone tapping expose, the decision for distribution of portfolio to ministers in the present government was not being taken by the Prime Minister but by certain business houses. It is now an open secret that some ministers and bureaucrats of the government have got affiliated to certain business houses. They openly associate with each other. It will not be an exaggeration to say that certain state governments and certain ministries in the centre are being run by business houses.