Umang Milwaukee was organized to support the artistic and cultural activities of volunteer performers hoping to create an institution based in Milwaukee that would propagate the rich traditions of Indian Music and Culture. Umang’s first performance recently took place in Milwaukee with a share of the proceeds going to support the excellent ‘Assist Bhopal’ initiative of Megan Dogra.
Picture shows Megan with Dr. Karmarkar, founder of Umang.
Megan has been fundraising for the Chingari Trust Rehabilitation Centre, in Bhopal, using her Assist Bhopal Facebook page, since visiting the clinic as a ninth grade student in 2014. Megan’s Assist Bhopal mission statement:
Raising awareness of the ongoing disaster in Bhopal, India and raising funds for the second and third generation victims, the children being born to the survivors of the gas disaster (December 3, 1984) who have an increased occurrence of congenital birth defects, physical malformations and cognitive disabilities since the residual toxic waste from the abandoned plant continues to contaminate the ground water three decades later.
Assist Bhopal on Facebook: CLICK HERE
Dow Chemical is a named respondent in public interest litigation in the Madhya Pradesh High Court (2004) seeking remediation of the abandoned Union Carbide factory site. But Dow continues to resist the Ministry’s 2006 request for a £16 million deposit towards initial costs.
Dow refuses to acknowledge the official position of the Indian government, as expressed in a letter to the Lower District Court, Manhattan, dated June 8, 2004, viz: “It is the official position of the Government of India that the previous settlement of claims concerning the 1984 Bhopal Gas Disaster between Union Carbide and Union of India has no legal bearing on or relation whatsoever to the environmental contamination… Pursuant to the ‘polluter pays’ principle recognized by both the United States and India, Union Carbide should bear all the financial burden and cost for the purpose of environmental clean-up and remediation. The Union of India and the State Government of Madhya Pradesh shall not bear any financial burden for this purpose.”
Find out more about Dow Chemical’s Bhopal legal liabilities: CLICK HERE
