Published: December 2nd 2011 - at 10:00 amPressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott
Pressure is being mounted on the Olympics committee today to reconsider accepting controversial sponsorship money as Indian athletes threaten a boycott of the games.
Ken Livingstone and others will today launch a public petition of thousands of signatures from concerned citizens, Olympians and celebrity endorsers at the Olympic site in Stratford.
Today marks the 27th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 – which killed thousands immediately and affects hundreds of thousands more even to this day.
Union Carbide, the company responsible for the disaster, now owned by Dow Chemical, has not accepted full responsibility for the present-day environmental pollution.
After it emerged that Dow was sponsoring a small part of the Olympics, Indian athletes threatened a full boycott.
Dow Chemical is paying for a temporary decorative fabric wrap for the Stadium, costing around £7m.
Key Labour figures are today launching a campaign to urge the London 2012 Olympic organisers (LOCOG) to drop their sponsorship deal with Dow Chemical Company.
Labour Friends of India are planning to hold a series of press events and meetings with legislators across the world.
The Labour MP Barry Gardiner – chair of Labour Friends of India – will meet politicians from the G20 nations in Durban on Saturday to raise “concerns about Dow’s failure to remediate the site at Bhopal and to take proper environmental and social corporate responsibility”.
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Reader comments
I think the image is too graphic on this article
Did you really need to put such a graphic picture up without any specific context?
Contrary to @1 and @2 I think the image focuses exactly what is meant by corporate responsibility and how it has been abused on the basis that ‘life is cheap’ in the third world. Not nice but neither are the actions of a lot of these global Corporations.
3. Man on Clapham Omnibus
Contrary to @1 and @2 I think the image focuses exactly what is meant by corporate responsibility and how it has been abused on the basis that ‘life is cheap’ in the third world. Not nice but neither are the actions of a lot of these global Corporations.
Sorry but would this be the global corporation that tried to introduce proper levels of safety equipment in their plant but were denied by the Indian government’s insistence that they use older designs with inferior materials that happened to be made in India?
That global corporation?
There is a reason the Indian government has never seriously tried to take Union Carbide to court. They would lose. Or at least they would share blame.
Hypocrite SCUM Livingstone.
He’s happy to suck the tiny dick of raving Islamist preachers.
And praise and excuse the Chinese Government
SMFS: no, not that corporation. Dow is the corporation that took over Union Carbide 17 years after Bhopal, and 10 years after Union Carbide agreed a full settlement and compensation deal with the Indian government that was endorsed by the Indian High Court.
In other words, this is total and utter bollocks, and anyone slating Dow has literally no idea what they’re talking about.
Reactions: Twitter, blogs
- Liberal Conspiracy
Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott http://t.co/sVSAzk8K
- sunny hundal
Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott as Labour figures launch campaign on anniversary http://t.co/lLw6j8RV
- WestMonster
RT @sunny_hundal: Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott as Labour figures launch campaign on anniversary http://t.co/Qj7ujrDu
- E R Light
Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott as Labour figures launch campaign on anniversary http://t.co/lLw6j8RV
- Kevin Donovan
Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott as Labour figures launch campaign on anniversary http://t.co/lLw6j8RV
- Liz K
RT @libcon: Pressure mounts on Indian #Olympics boycott http://t.co/ONUKC8bH #Bhopal #Dow oh dear..
- Alex Braithwaite
Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott | Liberal Conspiracy http://t.co/KJWht9df via @libcon
- Olympic Tweeter
Pressure mounts on Indian Olympics boycott | Liberal Conspiracy http://t.co/LXe09xc6
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