People of India are familiar with ‘Mukesh’. People are witness to Mukesh dying many times on small screen and silverscreen while they were enjoying films. Many film stars,celebrities spoke ” Cigarette Somoking is injurious to health. Smoking,alcohol consumption and tobacco results in cancer and no stars are promoting them in their films”. Government of India, in every annual budget increase rates of cigarettes and tobacco products and makes it mandatory on companies to display statutory warning and smoking is banned in public places.
However much to the shock of all Parliamentary committee says Cigarettes do not cause cancer. BJP leader Dilip Kumar Gandhi, chairman of the Committee questioned “Does this (smoking) cause cancer or does not? What are the impacts? We have never done our own survey,” This shocked many since many surveys and researches across the world proved that cigarette smoking causes cancer.
Many say Government along with politicians from ruling BJP and opposition Congress along with others parties are trying to help the big corporates,tobacco lobby as they get lot of funds during elections. Bhavna Mukhopadhyay, Executive Director of the Voluntary Health Association of India says “This is just a front for the tobacco industry, it’s going to affect the bottom line of companies and that’s the smoke screen they have put up,” She adds “In a country like ours, where a large section of the population cannot read or write and more users are coming on board, pictorial warnings are the need of the hour.”
Earlier Government and health minister JP Nadda planned to ban unpackaged cigarette sales and increasing age limit to purchase cigarettes to 25. Even as health campaigners welcomed, the proposed plan didnot make any headway. More than 900,000 people die of cancer related diseases in India each year and this is next only to China and experts predict that it could rise to 1.5 million in the next decade.
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