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एन.के. के नाम से मशहूर नरेन्द्र कुमार सिंह ने पत्रकारिता में अनेक झंडे गाड़े हैं। वे हैं तो बिहार के लेकिन उनका कर्म क्षेत्र पूरा भारत की रहा है, जिसमें से मध्यप्रदेश में उन्होंने अपनी सेवाओं लम्बे समय तक दी और अब वे मध्यप्रदेश के ही निवासी हो गए हैं। अपने ४० साल के पत्रकारिता के जीवन में एनके सिंह के तीन हजार से ज्यादा आलेख प्रकाशित हो चुके हैं। कई अखबारों का सम्पादन वे कर चुके हैं और कई डाक्यूमेन्ट्री फिल्मों के निर्माण अहम सहयोग दे चुके हैं। सेन्ट्रल प्रेस क्लब भोपाल के अध्यक्ष रह चुके नरेन्द्र कुमार सिंह ने संगठन को बनाने के लिए ही बहुत सारे कार्य किए हैं।

हिन्दुस्तान टाइम्स के मध्यप्रदेश के स्थानीय सम्पादक के रूप में, इंडियान एक्सप्रेस के गुजरात संस्करणों के सम्पादकों के रूप में और दैनिक भास्कर के राजस्थान संस्करणों के सम्पादक के रूप में वे काम कर चुके हैं। वे दैनिक भास्कर भोपाल के स्थानीय सम्पादक भी रहे और इंडिया टुडे पत्रिका के एसोसिएट्स एडिटर और विशेष संवाददाता के रूप में करीब १४ साल मध्यप्रदेश में कार्य कर चुके हैं। पीपुल्स समाचार समूह के सम्पादक के रूप में भी उन्होंने कार्य किया। करीब चार दशक पहले अप्रैल १९७६ से मार्च दिसम्बर १९७८ तक उन्होंने नईदुनिया में राजेन्द्र माथुर के साथ वरिष्ठ उप सम्पादक के रूप में भी कार्य किया। नईदुनिया में ‘पत्र, सम्पादक के नाम’ स्तंभ में सम्पादन का कार्य उन्होंने बड़ी सफलता से किया। इस स्तंभ का जिम्मा लेने के बाद यह स्तंभ बहुत लोकप्रिय हुआ और सम्पादक के नाम आने वाले औसत पत्रों की संख्या ४५-५० से बढ़कर करीब २५० प्रतिदिन हो गए।

२० साल से भी कम उम्र में लिखना शुरू कर दिया था। गंभीर विषयों पर लिखे उनके लेख अनेक प्रतिष्ठित पत्रिकाओं में छपने शुरू हो गए थे, जिनमें रोमेश थापर द्वारा सम्पादित प्रसिद्ध पत्रिका ‘सेमिनार’ शामिल है। १९७७ में इकॉनोमिकल एंड पॉलिटिकल वीकली में उन्होंने शंकर गुहा नियोगी पर एक लेखमाला लिखी थी। इसी लिखी माला के माध्यम से देश ने शंकर गुहा नियोगी को जाना। नरेन्द्र कुमार सिंह के द्वारा समसामयिक मुद्दों पर उठाए गए विषयों पर सुप्रीम कोर्ट ने कई बार पहल की और पीड़ितों को न्याय दिलाने की शुरुआत की। इनमें पत्थर खदानों में काम कर रहे बंधुआ मजदूरो का मुद्दा प्रमुख है, जो मध्यप्रदेश में कार्य कर रहे थे। इसके अलावा मंदसौर में स्लेट-पेंसिल उद्योग में काम कर रहे मजदूरों को सिलिकोसिस बीमारी का मुद्दा भी प्रमुख रहा और इटारसी के पास केसला फायर रेंज मेंं बमों की खोल बीनने वाले गरीब कबाड़ियों का मुद्दा भी। द टाइम्स ऑफ इंडिया, फॉर इस्टर्न इकोनॉमिक रिव्यू, सेमीनार, मेनस्ट्रीम, लिंक, मॉर्डन रिव्यू, ब्लिट़्ज, करंट, जनसत्ता, दिनमान, संडे, ऑन लुकर प्रंâटियर आदि में उनके लेख और रिपोर्ट प्रकाशित होते रहे। समसामयिक विषयों पर उनकी तीन पुस्तिकाएं भी प्रकाशित हुई है जो चाईबासा के दंगों, नानोरी तथा सजनी के दंगों तथा आरएसएस ऑक्टोपस इन बीएचयू के नाम से प्रकाशित हुई थी।

१५ दिसम्बर १९५२ को जन्मे नरेन्द्रकुमार सिंह का दो दशकों से भी ज्यादा का कार्यकाल मध्य प्रदेश में ही बीता है। वे मानव अधिकार कार्यकर्ता के रूप में जाने-पहचाने जाते हैं और कई मानव अधिकार संगठन तथा एनजीओ से जुड़े हैं। १९८२ में उन्हें मानव अधिकार के मुद्दों पर बेहतरीन रिपोर्टिंग पर मध्यप्रदेश पीपुल्स यूनियन फॉर सिविल लिबर्टी़ज सम्मान भी मिला है। १९८२ में उन्हें एसपीएन पत्रकारिता न्यास का एक्सीलेंस इन जर्नलिज्म अवार्ड भी मिल चुका है। एमपी वर्विंâग जनर्लिज्म भी उन्हें सम्मानित कर चुकी है।

अपने पत्रकारीय जीवन में एन.के. सिंह ने अनेक मोर्चों पर काम किया। हर मोर्चे पर उन्होंने अपनी काबिलियत और विश्वसनीयता का लोहा मनवाया। चाहे वह नईदुनिया में डेस्क का काम हो या इंडियन एक्सप्रेस की रिपोर्टिंग। हिन्दुस्तान टाइम्स के एडिटर के रूप में उन्होंने इंदौर संस्करण की शुरुआत करवाई और इंडियन एक्सप्रेस के गुजरात संस्करणों के सम्पादक के रूप में गुजरात की जटिल सामाजिक आर्थिक संरचना पर उद्देश्य पूर्ण पत्रकारिता की। दैनिक भास्कर भोपाल के सम्पादक बनने के बाद उन्हें पद्दोन्नत कर जयपुर भेजा गया, जहां उन्होंने दैनिक भास्कर के राजस्थान से प्रकाशित होने वाले १२ संस्करणों की सम्पादकीय का नेतृत्व किया। अंग्रेजी दैनिक हितवाद के भोपाल संस्करण में उन्होंने रात्री कालीन शिफ्ट इंचार्ज और कॉपी एडिटिंग का कार्य भी किया। अनेक राजनीतिज्ञों से उनके व्यक्तिगत संबंध भी रहे।

An interview by INDIA TODAY Associate Editor N K Singh

"The merger of Dow and UCC imposes the risk of mega-disasters like Bhopal."

The impending merger of Dow Chemical Company (1999 annual turnover US$ 19 billion) with Union Carbide Corporation (1999 annual turnover US$ 4.1 billion) ran into rough weather last week. Survivors of the Bhopal disaster and green activists teamed up with a section of Dow shareholders to file a federal lawsuit in New York opposing the merger.

The Dow shareholders accused their company of withholding financially damaging information. The loose-knit group of shareholders also said at Dow's annual meeting on May 11 that they weren't aware of what they claimed was Union Carbide's continuing liability in the Bhopal disaster. Several protesters, speaking through shareholder's proxies, rose to condemn the company.

Dow officials say they had nothing to do with the Bhopal disaster and that the matter was seemingly concluded with the Supreme Court's ruling in 1989. "It's not in my power to take responsibility for an event 15 years ago with a product we never developed at a location where we never operated," Dow Chairman Frank Popoff said. As for the question of continuing liability, he said Union Carbide has already settled with victims.

The man who is trying to stop "the second largest chemical behemoth in the world" from coming into existence sits in distant Bhopal. Satinath Sarangi, 45, of Bhopal Group for Information and Action, an NGO working among survivors of the gas disaster, has involved himself with the Bhopal case since the chemical accident 15 years ago. He spoke to India Today Associate Editor N K Singh on why the activists are opposing the Dow-Carbide merger.

Q. Why are you against the Dow-Carbide merger?

A. Because this merger will help Union Carbide vanish as an entity. We cannot let Union Carbide's name disappear before justice is done in Bhopal. The massacre in Bhopal is the big reason why the name Union Carbide continues to be a burden on the corporation and is still a source of negative Public Relations. Aware of this, Union Carbide initiated its vanishing act way back in 1992. First to go was Union Carbide Eastern Hong Kong, one of the accused in the Bhopal case. This wholly owned subsidiary that served as the conduit of UCC's control over the Bhopal factory was dissolved and de-registered in Maryland. The assets and the Board of Directors were reshuffled and given a new name in 1992.

The CBI has said in the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Bhopal, that they have no means to proceed against a company that has dissolved itself. The Indian subsidiary was renamed Eveready Industries India Limited after Union Carbide Corporation's shares were sold off to the Khaitan Group in 1994. UCC's former CEO, Kennedy had proclaimed "Bhopal is history" in one of their annual meetings. Since public memory did not/will not allow that to be a reality, it seems the company is now trying to commit itself to history. Dow Chemical Corporation is aware of the burden of shame.Dow executives have already begun saying, "we have not done it - that was a different company."

Q. But the way the activists are campaigning against the merger, it would seem that the target is Dow as much as UCC. Why?

A. Union Carbide and Dow are founders of the "military industrial complex", a coalition of business, military and politicians, that increasingly threatens global security. Union Carbide and Dow produced picric acid and mustard gas used in World War I. In World War II, Dow made magnesium for bombs and Union Carbide produced nuclear materials as well as chemical weapons. Dow played a principal role in the US military aggression on Vietnam in the late sixties. The company was the top producer of Agent Orange a toxic defoliant sprayed over 4.5 million acres of Vietnam to make it harder for the Vietcong guerrillas to hide. The potential synergy of two corporations dealing with the most toxic chemicals in the world imposes the risk of mega-disasters like Bhopal.

Both Carbide and Dow share a history of shocking disregard of environmental and occupational health as well as work safety and human rights. The merged entity threatens to be the second largest chemical behemoth in the world. Such concentration of toxic capital is a grave threat to life and health of people all over the world. As the largest producer of dioxin - the most toxic chemical known to man - Dow Chemical Corporation is responsible for causing a variety of cancers, endometriosis, declining fertility, immune system suppression and birth defects all over the world. Union Carbide continues to be one of the major suppliers of toxic compounds.

Q. But you seem to be targeting Dow's shareholders for your anti-merger campaign.

A. We are informing them that the merger is based on a lie that Union Carbide has no criminal liabilities. Union Carbide is liable for killing of thousands of people, for withholding of vital medical information and impeding medical treatment of the survivors, for devastation of family economies and for the toxic contamination of the soil and ground water in the communities next to the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. These liabilities are still outstanding because Union Carbide Corporation, USA, is absconding criminal prosecution in India.

Q. How strong is the opposition to the merger?

A. The opposition to the merger is growing. Three organizations with wide national and international networks have joined with our International Alliance for Justice in Bhopal, an international network of enironmental, health, human rights and other activist

groups. These three are ---- Essential Action set up by Ralph Nader, famous US based activist carrying out international labour, environmental, human rights and other campaigns; Infact, a US national grassroots watchdog organization campaigning for corporate accountability; and Association for India's Development, a US based group of mostly young people of Indian origin supporting campaigns and development work in India. In addition, Dow shareholders are suing the corporation and its 17 senior officials alleging potential financial harm caused by Dow's suppression of information regarding Union Carbide's pending liabilities.

Q. What is the form of your opposition?

A. We have filed complaints before the Securities Exchange Commission and the Attorney General's office in New York. Led by Irish M P, Patricia Mckenna, the members of the green caucus have moved a resolution against the merger in the European parliament. We organised a demonstration at the annual shareholders meeting on 11th May at Midland, Michigan. Three of the protesters gave speeches at the annual shareholders meeting.

Q. What about the law suit against Dow?

A. Our legal counsels are also representing Dow shareholders in a class action suit filed in the District Court for the Southern District Of New York on behalf of all persons who held the common stock of Dow Chemical since August 13, 1999, when the Dow-Union Carbide merger was announced. The suit has been filed against Dow Chemical Corporation and its 17 officials.

The complaint says that Dow failed to disclose that Union Carbide is criminally charged in India for the Bhopal disaster with culpable homicide and other charges, which potentially exposes it to billions of dollars of liability. We have pointed out that Union Carbide failed to appear in Indian criminal courts, was proclaimed an absconder and its assets in India were attached. We have emphasised that Dow 's Indian holdings will likewise be in danger of attachment by Indian courts and Dow 's plans to expand operations in India will, therefore, be jeopardized. The complaint also says that Union Carbide remains liable for damages from environmental contamination from its former Bhopal pesticide plant. The complaint further alleges that Dow's failure to address these matters has caused Dow to underestimate the liabilities it stands to assume pursuant to the merger, and that Dow made an excessive offer for Union Carbide.

Q. You have also filed a suit against the UCC in US. What is that all about?

A. Seven individual victims and five organizations of gas victims have filed a class action suit against UCC and Warren Anderson on November 15, 1999. The suit mainly alleges that Union Carbide demonstrated reckless or depraved indifference to human safety and life in the design, operation and maintenance of its MIC facilities in Bhopal as well as its safety mechanisms. It pursued a systematic policy of racial discrimination in the design, construction and operation of the Bhopal factory. Union Carbide demonstrated reckless or depraved indifference to human life in the manufacturing, storage, treatment and disposal practices at the UCIL plant, resulting in severe contamination of the soil and water in and around the UCIL plant. Union Carbide and Anderson were and are fugitives from the lawful jurisdiction of the Bhopal District Court where criminal charges remain pending against them. The suit is based on the legal provisions under US law of Alien Torts Claims Act that provides for civil remedies for 'crimes against humanity'. It seeks the federal court's decree directing UCC and Anderson to pay exemplary punitive damages.

(India Today)

‘For several nights I’d weep as I typed’

That cold December night of 1984 will be etched in my memory forever.

I was fast asleep under a warm quilt in Bhopal when the phone rang. My friend Raajkumar Keswani, a journalist living in the old quarters of the town, sounded agitated, a little incoherent and was gasping for breath and coughing. He said there was a commotion in the street, people were running around and something had happened. “I am having a problem breathing,” he said.

No new probe against Carbide in Bhopal leak case: US

Eight accused jailed for two years, bailed out in two hours

I came out of my house and was greeted by a bizarre sight. It was almost 1 at night but the normally deserted road was jampacked with people. They were walking silently, visibly tired, some of them carrying children in their arms, others supporting older people. Many lay on the footpath. Quite a few were very ill and vomiting. Several were trying to stop vehicles, already overloaded with people. “What happened?” I asked a person.

“The gas tank in Union Carbide has burst,” was the reply.

I looked at him incredulously. I was no stranger to Union Carbide and the deadly gases they produced. Raajkumar had been writing for a long time about the threat that Bhopal faced from toxic chemicals of the multinational’s pesticide plant.

By this time my eyes had started smarting. Something was wrong with the air! I called Raajkumar, advising him to leave his house, piled on my scooter with my wife and two children and fled.

As dawn approached, all roads led to the hospitals. Ordinary citizens set up tents to distribute food and medicines. By dusk the action had moved to cremation grounds and graveyards working fulltime.

Thousands fled the city that day — the exodus continued for more than a fortnight —and Bhopal soon looked like a ghost city. Only those who had to stay — doctors, journalists, policemen, government employees and telegraphers — remained in the city.

I returned early to start my work as a reporter with the Indian Express at that time. As we went around the ravaged town, the full magnitude of the tragedy sank in — bodies of families being pulled out of shanties, carcasses of animals lying in the open, hospitals packed with victims, hundreds of bodies kept outside the morgue and the streets deserted.

On the evening of December 3, 2004, as I sat on my typewriter to write the story of the world’s worst industrial disaster, tears started welling up in my eyes. That evening, and for many evenings after that, tears would keep rolling down my cheeks even as I hammered at the keyboard to meet the deadline of the newspaper.

(The writer is Resident Editor of Hindustan Times, Bhopal)

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