India considers Olympic boycott

The Indian Olympic Association is considering a petition from current and former Olympians to boycott the London 2012 Games due to the sponsorship of Dow. Officials said they will soon meet and vote on whether to keep their athletes at home during the Games due to the $10.8 million sponsorship deal with Dow, the U.S. parent company of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the 1984 Bhopal chemical disaster, The Daily Telegraph, Britain, reported Friday. "We feel that it will be against the basic principles of the Olympics charter to partner with Dow Chemical, which is responsible for the ongoing disaster in Bhopal," the petition reads. V.K. Malhotra, the acting president of the Indian Olympic Association, said a meeting will be held in the coming weeks to make a decision about an Olympic boycott, which would be the first for India. "The government has not expressed a voice and I don't want to give an impression before the meeting," Malhotra said when asked about the likely outcome of the meeting. The Bhopal disaster initially killed about 3,000 people and a further 15,000 have since died from poisoning.