What were the ingredients of the deadly cocktail that tank no. 610 at Union Carbide India Limited's (ucil) Bhopal plant spewed on December 3-4, 1984? So potent was the mix that 3000 lives were lost then. The toll is now 11,000 and mounting. Yet the victims and medical fraternity are in the dark.

ucil had a two-word escape clause to avoid divulging details: trade secret (see Down To Earth, ucil's end-game, Vol 6, No 12, November 15, 1997). But then nothing better could be expected from the perpetrators of what is often referred to as the