 Welcome to Dispatches from India, a show by People's Dispatch where we bring you major news developments from the country over the past week. In this episode, we will be looking at a gas leak in the city of Vishakhapatnam that killed 11 people. We will also be looking at the continuing impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in Kashmir and a recent scandal which has exposed the patriarchal mindset in Indian society. Our first story is about the gas leak that took place in the south Indian city of Vishakhapatnam. The incident took place around 2.30 am on May 7th, Thursday. The gas that leaked from the plant of LG Polymer India Private Limited was tyreen, a poisonous substance which can cause cancer to those exposed to it. The leak took place during an attempt to reopen the plant after the COVID-19 lockdown. As the gas leaked, horrific incidents were reported from the villages near the plant. People began waking up, experiencing breathlessness and rushed out of their homes. Many collapsed on the road as mass panic broke out. Thousands rushed to hospitals. In a few hours, 11 people had died, including one minor. Hundreds were hospitalized. State agencies and military forces were pushed into the leak work. A compensation was announced for the families of the victims. The next day, India's National Green Tribunal announced a fine of over 66,000 US dollars on the company which is a subsidiary of the South Korean company LG. The incident brought back memories of the horrific Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984, when thousands of people were killed following the leakage of the toxic gas methyl isocyanate. But what caused the gas leak? Experts say there were regulatory failures and not enough drills were conducted. News click spoke to D. Raghunandan of the Delhi Science Forum on this issue. Raghunandan, India's National Green Tribunal So there are a lot of questions that are emerging out of yesterday's incident. The most important question is that from what we know right now, has there been any gap in the security measures, has there been a gap in the safety measures that have been taken? Well, as of now, we don't know all the details, but some things we can definitely note. Styrene is normally stored as a liquid at minus 20 Celsius and it was stored in a fairly large tank. Now what seems to have happened is that the temperature control systems seem to have malfunction and the liquid then vaporized, got converted into vapor which has escaped from the tank in an explosive manner and has spread into the nearby areas. Now although literature says that this is not fatal in nature, but if concentrations are very high, like it would have been in the vicinity of the plant, then either directly by asphyxiation, by just suffocation or by overdose at very high levels of concentration, it can lead to fatalities. Now as for the leakage itself, I would have thought that before starting the operation of the plant, they should have been a preliminary safety drill or a safety audit conducted of the plant and a trial run done before full scale operations are started. Now we don't know exactly what was done, but it looks as if operation was commenced without a very rigorous safety drill or a trial run. And the other question is that should, is there any basic flaw in the way the plant is set up itself? For instance, it is set up very close to areas of residence, there are a number of hamlets in the vicinity and we do know that also a key water reservoir is just about 2 kilometers away from the plant. So does all this, is all this in some ways also quite dangerous? Well, it is dangerous and this is the deja vu time because it harts back to the Bhopal gas strategy and almost exactly what happened in Bhopal, the Union Carbide plant there when it was set up was outside the city limits, but the city gradually expanded so that the Union Carbide plant then became at the center of a population center, which was a very congested area. Very similar thing has happened in Vizag, when this plant was first set up quite some time back when it was known as Hindustan polymers, it was located in the suburbs of Vizag, but now the suburbs have become part of the city itself. So it is not that the plant was located in the middle of population centers, but population centers were allowed to expand right up to the vicinity of the plant. So in that sense, it is not a siting problem of the plant factory itself, but a siting problem of the city municipal authorities who have allowed population centers to come up to the plant vicinity, either that or the municipal authority should have told the plant to shift outside, but to allow population centers to come up in the vicinity of the plant is certainly dangerous. In our next story, we look at the COVID-19 situation in the country. As of 8 a.m. on May 9th, the total number of cases was 59,662 of these nearly 40,000 cases were active, over 1,980 people have died. The lockdown that was imposed on the midnight of March 25th continues in many parts of the country. In some areas, the lockdown has been eased. However, the fact that the number of cases continues to rise at a steady pace has left experts concerned. The economic impact of the lockdown continues to be seen in thousands of ways across the country. The situation is made worse by the fact that most governments have not put in place enough measures for the poor. In our continuing coverage of the lockdown's impact, we look at the situation of the drivers in Kashmir. Take a look at this feature video by Newsclick. How can Ali Mohammed summarise the loss of his livelihood, his work, since the overnight change that came in when the central government scrapped Article 370 in Jammu in Kashmir and turned it into a union territory? HUMC has been at least a year since last August that we had some work. Eight months later, the valley sees another lockdown. This time it is to stop the coronavirus pandemic from spreading in newer territories. Transport business is our only support. Tourists are not coming since lockdown was imposed last year. We taxi drivers have no other way to earn our livelihood. This coronavirus has further increased our plight. We have no earnings, our vehicles are all standing idle. We have no money to pay our loans. When we do not have enough money to run our households, how do we get money to pay the loans? As you can see, all the vehicles are just idle standing all around here. The government has imposed various kinds of taxes. We also have to pay insurance money which is minimum 30,000 rupees. How are we supposed to get this money? Our government should pay attention to our problems. We do not have enough to pay for our food. Lockdown may have saved people in one way but most of the people have no money to pay for their food. Government has made no arrangements to deal with all these problems. In our final story, we look at a major scandal that emerged last week called the Boys Locker Room issue. Boys Locker Room is the name of an Instagram group. The members of this group were mainly schoolboys from some of the most prominent institutions in India's capital, New Delhi. These children shared pictures of girls that engaged in very abusive language including discussions about gang rape. The existence of this group became public when one of the girls who was targeted found out about this and revealed the information on social media. The police acted quickly, questioning the boys and arresting one of the group's moderators who was above 18. The issue has raised a lot of questions on the role of patriarchy and violence in Indian society. Experts pointed out that this group cannot be seen in isolation. In fact, the behaviour of these boys is only a reflection of the larger issue of sexual violence in the Indian society. In this context, it is important to remember that violent and abusive language is used constantly by supporters of India's right-wing government against their opponents. After this incident happened, many experts recall the case of Safoora Zargarh, an activist and a critic of the government who was arrested recently. Right-wing trolls have been using very foul, violent and abusive language against her on social media. We talk to journalist Basha Singh on this issue. Basha, thank you so much for joining us. So the Boys Locker Room controversy has exposed a lot of issues about, shall we say, Indian society itself and the way we are organised, the kind of patriarchy that we see around us. But this in itself is not really an isolated incident. It is located in a larger context, the impact of which we see every day around us in multiple ways and especially online, especially when around the politics. So could you talk a bit about the larger context with reference to this issue? Yeah. Basically, how I see that this issue is anyhow the panic button for all of the civil society and especially for all the homes that how we are dealing with our youngsters, the next generation, what we are teaching them. I just want to take you to the case of the Safoora Zargarh. She is a student activist, very vocal activist against the movement which was going in the Jamia University, Jamia Miliya Islamia and she is now behind the bars and the police has made a case against her that she was involved in, Deli Royce and all that thing is being called. And now when she is in jail, she is being targeted by the great BJP leader, Kapil Mishra in Delhi and in a very abusive language. And from there till now, when we are talking also, you will find that there is bundle of tweets which is attacking her pregnancy. They are talking, they are just believing that it's a better to assassinate a character. So character assassination is going on of Safoora Zargarh and not a single voice from the ruling party, from the people who are attacking, no police action is being done. So you see that this is one of the recent case where we find that when there is an attack on woman dignity, her body, her pregnancy, everything. So there is almost a consciousness, everybody has collided together that we can do this and nobody is being held accountable for this. And at the same time, this boy's locker room case erupts. And I think that it was very good that these girls have shown so much guts to come in public and show us that what is going on across the thing. I'm not worried that what is going to happen to these 25, 22, now they are saying they are 51 and the interrogation is going on. But if you see the kind of text which they were dealing with and the kind of impunity they were enjoying with, and it's a horrifying thing that when these all chats were leaked in a social media on the Sunday, then immediately they made our next group. And in that next group, they were deciding, they were discussing that how they are going to abuse these girls. They were planning to release their nude photos. So that shows that this kind of impunity we have built, at least in the capital also, where these boys were claiming that my father is very powerful. I'm very well off. I'm studying here. And the rape has become a game. We have so far seen that there are many video games across the country and across the globe which deal with the rapes. So these boys are experiment now are into it. They are into a criminal act and they know by their environment, their surrounding that nobody is going to be held accountable. And even while discussing that how they are going to commit a gang rape, and many leaks are coming out, which gives us a sense that they in fact committed a gang rape. So this is a horrifying incident. This is basically, this was going on across when we are, we find that Asarambapu. The people who are behind the bar, when we find that there are such a person, when we find Kuldeep Singh or when we find Chinmayanand. And their following is not being reduced a little bit. Their political patronage is not reduced a little bit. Then you see in that context, then you will find that basically the rulers of this country have been very systematically, they have been made this that if a rape is being done by a person in power, by a person of some religion, then there is a 100% impunity to it. That's what the boys were doing. And in so far, we are discussing about the, this locker's room, but we are not discussing about the Safoora Sagar. Why not those people who are abusing her, they are booked. That's all we have in this episode of Dispatches from India. We'll be back next week with some of the major news developments from the country. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.