Just for the record, Brian May: you are not accurate as you say "when not a penny has been paid to Union Carbide's victims in India."

I agree that the amount was obscenely low but government did do its thing. ver batim from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Widow pension of the rate of Rs 200/per month (later Rs 750) was provided.

One-time ex-gratia payment of Rs 1,500 to families with monthly income Rs 500 or less was decided.

Each claimant was to be categorised by a doctor. In court, the claimants were expected to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that death or injury in each case was attributable to exposure. In 1992, 44 percent of the claimants still had to be medically examined.

From 1990 interim relief of Rs 200 was paid to everyone in the family who was born before the disaster.

The final compensation (including interim relief) for personal injury was for the majority Rs 25,000 (US$ 830). For death claim, the average sum paid out was Rs 62,000.

Effects of interim relief were more children sent to school, more money spent on treatment, more money spent on food, improvement of housing conditions.

The management of registration and distribution of relief showed many shortcomings.

In 2007, 1,029,517 cases were registered and decided. Number of awarded cases were 574,304 and number of rejected cases 455,213. Total compensation awarded was Rs.1,546.47 crores.

Because of the smallness of the sums paid and the denial of interest to the claimants, a sum as large as Rs 10 billion is expected to be left over after all claims have been settled.