Author: Deshdeep Saxena
Toxic waste disposal of Union Carbide raises chilling question: Where have hundreds of kilograms of poison gone? Four decades after the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy killed nearly 20,000 people and left half a million with irreversible health damage, its ghost has returned. The immediate catalyst was an operation in June last year. Toxic waste weighing 337 metric tonnes (MT) from the defunct pesticide plant, Union Carbide, was incinerated at the private waste treatment facility at the Ramky TSDF facility in the Pithampur industrial area in Madhya Pradesh. This waste had been moved from Bhopal in January amidst fierce protests. Two…
The cough syrup, Coldrif, meant to heal had turned into a slow, silent poison. By the time the state could even begin to respond, 25 children across Madhya Pradesh, mostly in Chhindwara, were dead.The tragedy in Madhya Pradesh that has shaken the nation’s conscience was not sudden. It was waiting to happen in a state whose public healthcare system had collapsed long ago. Worse, despite repeated regulatory warnings, the Madhya Pradesh government stayed aloof, blind to the danger signs. Behind every bottle of the tainted and poisonous cough syrup lies a trail of regulatory negligence and institutional apathy. The disaster…
In the nondescript, far-away villages of Madhya Pradesh, a silent war rages. Its victims are not soldiers but some of India’s most vulnerable citizens: tribal and Dalit women. The weapons are not guns but caste venom, political apathy, and institutional desertion. Madhya Pradesh’s records on Dalit atrocities paint a chilling picture. Between 2022 and 2024, Madhya Pradesh registered 7,418 rapes of Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) women, 338 gang rapes, 558 murders, and nearly 6,000 cases of molestation. In total, 44,878 crimes against Dalit and tribal women, including sexual violence, murder, and domestic abuse, were registered in just…
It was hailed as a landmark in conservation history—India reintroducing the cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal, to the subcontinent after more than 70 years. On September 17, 2022, amid much fanfare and spectacle, Prime Minister Narendra Modi released eight cheetahs from Namibia into specially constructed enclosures—or bomas—within Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Another 12 followed from South Africa in February 2023. Since then, much water has flowed through the Kuno—the river that gave the park its name. The mood at the park is now markedly less celebratory. “Project Cheetah”, which was meant to showcase India’s conservation prowess, is…
Deshdeep Saxena The primary mandate of the police is to uphold the law, maintain public order, and ensure the safety and security of citizens. But what happens when, under political patronage, the police go wayward and create public disorder? Who then will police the police? A string of incidents across Madhya Pradesh—where the government was already reeling from controversial remarks by senior ministers and a shameful act on the highway involving a party leader—was made worse by the actions of senior police officials, adding to the troubles of Chief Minister Mohan Yadav. Although Yadav took no action against the political…
