Dow Chemical to remove logo from London Olympic Stadium after protests from India
The Dow Chemical company has recently announced that it will be removing its logo from the Olympic Stadium present in London after there was strong and prolonged opposition from the Indian community.
However, the Indian Olympic Association has responded by expressing its dissatisfaction over the step taken by Dow Chemical and has again asserted that the company should end the partnership with the London 2012 Olympic Games.
The strong objection from the IOA upon Dow’s association with the Olympic Games traces its history back to 1984 when the tragic Bhopal incident took place. The incident is termed as one of the worst industrial disasters in history as thousands of innocent
people lost their lives. The loss of life took place because there was a gas leak in one of the plants owned by the Dow Chemical company due to which hundreds of immediate deaths occurred. Not only that, the death toll continued to rise as the effects of the
gas leak did not wear off soon.
In order to serve as some compensation, the Dow Chemical company paid off some liability in the form of money but the sum was nowhere near to what was demanded by the Indian government or the residents of the affected region. As the Dow Chemical had not
paid off its entire liabilities, the IOA had asked the International Olympic Committee formally to end the partnership contract that it had with the United States conglomerate.
V. K. Malhotra, who is the acting president of the IOA, expressed himself on the matter in the following words, “I have also heard about Dow chemical withdrawing their logo from the decorative wrap but I don't know what it means. Our demand is that Dow should
be removed as a sponsor and we have expressed strong reservation with the Olympics. We are sending our communication to Dow as well as IOC on this regard. So all that we want is that it should be removed as a sponsor and we will be satisfied if only the logo
is removed.”
What will be done regarding the matter, only time will tell.
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