The Bhopal disaster (commonly referred to as Bhopal gas tragedy) was a gas leak incident in India, considered one of the world's worst industrial catastrophes. It occurred on the night of December 2–3, 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. A leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals from the plant resulted in the exposure of hundreds of thousands of people. The toxic substance made its way in and around the shantytowns located near the plant. Estimates vary on the death toll. The official immediate death toll was 2,259 and the government of Madhya Pradesh has confirmed a total of 3,787 deaths related to the gas release. Others estimate 3,000 died within weeks and another 8,000 have since died from gas-related diseases. A government affidavit in 2006 stated the leak caused 558,125 injuries including 38,478 temporary partial and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.

UCIL was the Indian subsidiary of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), with Indian Government controlled banks and the Indian public holding a 49.1 percent stake. In 1994, the Supreme Court of India allowed UCC to sell its 50.9 percent share. Union Carbide sold UCIL, the Bhopal plant operator, to Eveready Industries India Limited in 1994. The Bhopal plant was later sold to McLeod Russel (India) Ltd. Dow Chemical Company purchased UCC in 2001.

Bhopal /boʊˈpɑːl/ (Hindustani pronunciation: [bʱoːpaːl] ( listen)) is the capital of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of Bhopal District and Bhopal Division. The city was the capital of the former Bhopal State. Bhopal is known as the City of Lakes for its various natural as well as artificial lakes and is also one of the greenest cities in India.

A B-1 class city, Bhopal houses various institutions and installations of national importance. Some of these include ISRO's Master Control Facility, the CSIR Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI), Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER Bhopal), School of Planning and Architecture, Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal (associated with Hamidia Hospital, Sultania Zanana Hospital & Kamla Nehru Hospital), and the (approved, under-construction) All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal.

Kalpen Suresh Modi (born April 23, 1977), best known by his stage name Kal Penn, is an American film and television actor, producer, and civil servant.

As an actor, he is known for his roles portraying the character Dr. Lawrence Kutner on the television program House and the character Kumar Patel in the Harold and Kumar comedy films. He is also recognized for his performance in the critically acclaimed film The Namesake. Penn has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania as a visiting lecturer in the Cinema Studies Program.

On April 8, 2009, it was announced that Penn would join the Obama administration as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. This necessitated that his character Lawrence Kutner be written out of the TV series House. Penn resigned his post as Barack Obama's associate director of public engagement on June 1, 2010, for a brief return to his acting career. He filmed the third installment of the Harold and Kumar series, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, then returned to the White House Office of Public Engagement as an Associate Director. In July 2011, he again left the White House, this time for a role in How I Met Your Mother, and then went back to his political duties.

Mischa Anne Marsden Barton (born 24 January 1986) is a British-American fashion model, film, television, and stage actress. She began her acting career on the stage, appearing in Tony Kushner's Slavs! and took the lead in James Lapine's Twelve Dreams at New York's Lincoln Center. She made her screen debut, making a guest appearance on the American soap opera All My Children (1996). She then voiced a character on KaBlam! (1996–1997), an animated television series on Nickelodeon. Her first major film role was as the protagonist of Lawn Dogs (1997), an acclaimed drama co-starring Sam Rockwell. She continued acting, appearing in major box office pictures such as the romantic comedy, Notting Hill (1999) and M. Night Shyamalan's psychological thriller, The Sixth Sense (1999).

She later appeared in the independent drama, Lost and Delirious (2001) and played Evan Rachel Wood's girlfriend during a guest-arc on ABC's Once and Again (2001–2002). She is best known for her role as Marissa Cooper in the Fox television series The O.C. (2003–2006), for which she received two Teen Choice Awards and a Prism Award nomination. Entertainment Weekly named her the "It Girl" of 2003.

Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez (born August 3, 1940), better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands (1973), Apocalypse Now (1979), Wall Street (1987), The Departed (2006), his role as The Illusive Man in the Mass Effect trilogy and President Josiah Bartlet in the television series The West Wing.

He is considered one of the best actors never to be nominated for an Academy Award despite his acclaimed performances.^[opinion] In film he has won the Best Actor award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival for his performance as Kit Carruthers in Badlands. His portrayal of Capt. Willard in Apocalypse Now earned a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor. Sheen has worked with a wide variety of film directors, such as Richard Attenborough, Francis Ford Coppola, Terrence Malick, David Cronenberg, Mike Nichols, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone. He has had a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame since 1989. In television he has won both a Golden Globe and two Screen Actors Guild awards for playing the lead role of President Bartlet in The West Wing, and an Emmy for guest acting in the sitcom Murphy Brown.