Smoking On Screen: India Movie Smoking Part Two

By Jonathan On Jul 5, 2017

India Movie Smoking Part Two

Woody Allen Extinguishes ‘Blue Jasmine’ In India Over Smoking Rules
October 7, 2013
Thanks to two smoking scenes in his Blue Jasmine, Woody Allen pulled the film’s India release over the weekend rather than allow government-mandated anti-smoking warnings to be inserted onscreen during scenes when characters light up. His reps confirmed the move: “Due to content in the film, it cannot be shown in India in its intended manner. Therefore, the film is not scheduled to play there.” The Oscar hopeful starring Cate Blanchett was scheduled to open in the territory in 30 theaters. India distributor PVR Pictures had no choice but to defer to Allen who retained creative control over the pic and refused to make “customizations” to accommodate India law. “He wasn’t comfortable with the disclaimer that we are required to run when some smoking scene is shown in films. He feels that when the scroll comes, attention goes to it rather than the scene,” PVR’s Deepak Sharma told BBC. Blue Jasmine has taken in $49.8M globally to date, with $18.5M coming from foreign box office.
deadline.com/2013/10/woody-allen-blue-jasmine-india-cigarette-smoking-law/

Court licence to smoke on screen
– Creative victory?

Jan. 23, 2009
SAMANWAYA RAUTRAY
New Delhi: Advantage Shah Rukh Khan: that is the score now in the tussle between health minister Anbumani Ramadoss and the film fraternity over the depiction of smoking on screen.

Delhi High Court today struck down the Centre’s October 2006 ban on smoking in films.

Shah Rukh, a heavy smoker off screen, has got the “artistic licence” to puff away to glory in his movies.

“A… film must reflect the realities of life. Smoking is a reality of life. It may be undesirable but it exists. It is not banned by any law,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul said.

“Directors of films should not have multifarious authorities breathing down their necks when indulging in creative acts,” he added.

The government is likely to appeal the decision in the Supreme Court.

The creative rights of a filmmaker are part of his larger right to freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution, the court ruled. “Any form of censorship is an inroad on the freedom of expression apart from the fact that censorship is highly subjective and can be essentially mindless.”

On July 27, 2007, the high court had reserved its order on filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt’s petition challenging the amendments to the Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production and Supply Act, 2003, which banned scenes of smoking in films.

The amendment, which also banned smoking in public, permitted scenes of smoking only on a limited scale in documentaries.

Bhatt had argued that the ban amounted to violation of filmmakers’ fundamental rights. His lawyer said filmmakers also depicted the adverse effect of tobacco products by showing the failing health of those who smoked and drank. The government permits the production and distribution of cigarettes, he pointed out.

The government defended the act on the ground that the people’s right to health was more important than the rights of a filmmaker. The policy, it said, had been drafted to discourage smoking among the general public because it had a right to good health.

In his campaign against smoking, Ramadoss, who was largely instrumental for the ban, had even appealed to Shah Rukh and Amitabh Bachchan not to portray such scenes.

The court said: “The undesirability of the act of smoking has nothing to do with the right of the director as an artiste to express what he desires.”

Films, Justice Kaul said in his 50-page order, should not only show “moral lectures”.

“To… depict such an act (smoking) without glamorising it or promoting any particular product cannot be prohibited as it would bar a representation of how life is.”

India’s Young Pick Up A Dangerous Addiction
Smoking Epidemic Foreseen Causing Millions of Deaths
By Emily Wax, Washington Post Foreign Service
February 21, 2008
NEW DELHI, Feb. 20 — Lounging in a smoke-filled cafe, Purvi Ahuja, 20, and her hip friends like their text messages to be fast, their cappuccinos to be milky and their cigarettes to be plentiful.
“I know it’s so bad. My skin is even gross, my lips are black because of it,” sighed Ahuja, her ashtray filled with cigarette butts. Her friends, a pilot and a writer, took long drags on their cigarettes, exhaled puffs of smoke and agreed that it’s just not easy to stop smoking.
Young Indians, especially young women like Ahuja, represent one of the cigarette companies’ largest markets. Because they are so heavily targeted, they are also at particular risk of smoking-related death, according to health officials.
Recent findings from the first nationally representative study of smoking in India found that this country is in the grip of a smoking epidemic likely to cause nearly a million deaths a year starting in 2010. There are 120 million smokers in India, half of them younger than 30, the study found. India has a larger population of smokers than any other country in the world except China.
The research was conducted across the country by a team of 900 field workers from India, Canada and Britain and the results published online in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.
The study found that more than half of smoking-related deaths would be among poor and illiterate Indians. It also offered some medical surprises about the way smoking worsens diseases, researchers said. According to the findings, for example, 40 percent of tuberculosis cases in India were due to smoking, since smoking converts the disease in the lungs more quickly.
Only 2 percent of smokers in India quit the habit, and usually only after falling ill.
“The health risks are much bigger than previously thought,” said Prabhat Jha, director of the Center for Global Health Research at the University of Toronto in Canada and one of the report’s authors.
He said Indians tend to start smoking later and smoke fewer cigarettes per person than Westerners. “But as it turns out, those factors don’t make a difference. The study found there were no safe levels of smoking. I think the message has to be smoking is not cool. It’s deadly.”
Anti-smoking activists say the government needs to launch a more aggressive campaign about the dangers of smoking and mandate grisly visual warnings — photos of cancerous lungs, for example — for those who can’t read. Taxes on cigarettes also need to be raised, they say, since the current tax amounts to pennies.
Indian Health Minister Abumani Ramadoss called last week’s report “alarming” and told journalists that the government is committed to tackling the issue.
Since January, Ramadoss has been publicly pressing cafes, college campuses and even Bollywood movie stars to take steps to curb smoking.
“Please don’t smoke in your movies,” Ramadoss said recently on CNN-IBN, one of the country’s largest news channels. “India should be very, very concerned about 14-year-olds now starting to smoke. We have data which show that 52 percent of children have their first puff of a cigarette because of movie celebrities.”
Recently, a movie star from Tollywood, the Tamil-language film industry, quit smoking and began talking to high school and college students about doing the same. The so-called king of Bollywood, actor Shah Rukh Khan, said in an interview that the thing he hated most about himself was his inability to stop smoking. “I know I have to. I know as a role model I shouldn’t be sending that message,” he said. “It’s a horrible habit. I have to work harder to stop.”
Smoking in India is as omnipresent as chili flakes and onions in food. Almost all restaurants and cafes permit smoking, and most smoking sections often dribble into nonsmoking sections, without enforcement.
In cosmopolitan cities like the capital, smoking is seen as a sign of rebellion against overbearing families that have traditionally exerted tight control over young people’s activities. But some young smokers say they are starting to acknowledge the dangers.
After the report was released, an anti-smoking squad at Delhi University traveled around campus buildings nabbing those who were smoking in classrooms.
Many working-class Indians smoke bidis, or small, cheaply made cigarettes rolled in leaves that cost the equivalent of 50 cents for a pack of 25.
Even smoking one to seven bidis a day raised the mortality risk by a third, Jha said.
Om Prakash, a 43-year-old resident of New Delhi, went to a roadside dealer for his bidi fix the other day. The dealer was operating from a tree, with cigarette cartons stuck in the trunk.
Prakash has smoked both bidis and cigarettes for 26 years.
“I want to stop. I know it’s bad for my health,” he said with a raspy cough. “I do tell my 12-year-old boy to never smoke. He likes to imitate me taking drags of my bidis.”

Shahrukh impressed with Ramadoss but defends smoking scenes
New Delhi, February 03, 2008
Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan on Saturday took a U-turn from his earlier comments on U nion Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss who had advised him not to smoke in public saying he was impressed with the latter’s concerns about the public health.
“It is just a misinterpretation that I have snubbed the Health Minister. I am very impressed with the fact that he wants me not to smoke. Even, I too want to quit smoking in my real life (not reel life),” Khan said to the reporters in New Delhi.
The Superstar had recently said in an interview that he did not like anyone telling him what to do and what not to. “I do not endorse smoking and I do not like anyone telling me personally what to do and what not to do,” Khan said in an interview to a private news channel.
Defending smoking scenes on the screen, the actor contended that the depiction of such habits are just a part of the characters. “I want to tell on behalf of every actor, director and producer that anything negative in movies like, fighting, firing, smoking, drinking and rapes are not for their glorification, but they are a part of characters. Films can’t be all about good things or god and goddess,” he said.
The actor advocated, “There should not be a blanket ban on anything. But yes you have to be responsible about what you show in your films. And I can say with pride that with 17 years and 60 films I have been one of the most responsible actor as far as what kind of the entertainment I am giving to the country.”

SRK gives dressing down to Ramadoss on smoking
Mumbai, Jan 31, 2008: The badshah of Bollywood, Shah Rukh Khan reiterated once again that he does not want any ban on onscreen smoking. It was apparently another dig by the reigning superstar of Indian cinema. The Khan had earlier refused to toe the line of U nion health minister Anbumani Ramadoss who had asked SRK to stop smoking in his films.
The actor while talking to NDTV said that he does not endorse smoking. Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) gave the worst dressing down to the u nion health minister when he said, “you cannot tell me how to earn a packet, you cannot tell me what to eat and what to wear, what not to say to my wife, these are personal things. So, I guard that very jealously”.
Shah Rukh Khan whose mere presence in a film ensures the success of the film went on to say, “I do not endorse smoking and I do not like anyone telling me personally what to do and what not to do”.
The actor who commands the greatest fan following in India had earlier said that he doesn’t think that a censorship on smoking on screen was a good idea. “Ramadoss feels Mr (Amitabh) Bachchan and myself should not be smoking on screen, and I truly agree. More than that, I wish that Mr Ramadoss prays I stop smoking in real life (since) that’s worse. Movies, we just do it for make-believe”.
Shah Rukh Khan went on to emphasize, “we shouldn’t have censorship on that”. He said that the creativity on screen should not be compromised and added that smoking on the screen was make believe and not real.
The u nion minister had asked Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan to stop smoking on screen saying that Rajnikanth, a renowned actor from South did not smoke in his latest film Sivaji. But Shah Rukh in fact does not want to be compared to anyone.
Ramadoss has been pushing for restrictive laws to put people off the addictive habit, which can cause cancers and other diseases. The minister had proposed an outright ban on smoking onscreen in 2006 and that tobacco packets be emblazoned with grisly photographs of smoking-related diseases, but neither suggestion has yet made it into law.

Delhi High Court reserves order on smoking ban in films

27 July 2007

The Delhi High Court has reserved its order on the petition of filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt challenging the validity of the prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production and Supply Act, 2003 which bans smoking scenes in films.

A bench comprising Justices Mukul Mudgal Sanjive Khanna, after hearing the arguments from both the sides, reserved its order.

Mr Bhatt’s lawyer Sandeep Sethi contended before the court that films were for the general public and stopping particular scenes amounted to violation of the fundamental rights of a film maker.

He said the Cinematograph Act 1952 and the Cinematograph (certification ) Rules 1983, a comprehensive legislation enacted by the legislation was complete in itself. Similarly, the Cable Television Rules 1994 was a comprehensive legislation regulating the cable television network in the country.

The second ammendment rules were against the legislative intent and a clear encroachment and misadventure by the delegate on the legislative field and cannot be countenanced.

Additional Solicitor General P P Malhotra today said according to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (prohibition of advertisement and regulation of trade and commerce, production, supply and distribution) Act 2003, the central Government laid down certain rules for the policy to be enforced for advertisements of smoking.

Mr Malhotra noted that the fundamental rights of the general public were higher than that of the film maker. Keeping in view the public health, the goverment drafted policy to discourage smoking among the people and the Fundamental Right to good health was promoted in the welfare of general public. He said children below the age of eighteen years were not allowed to buy cigrattes and scenes showing the hero smoking would encourage the act.

Mr Sethi contended that cinema also exhibits the adverse effect of tobacco products depicting the failing health of those who smoke and drink. Cinema by depicting the misuse of cigrarettes and tobacco products and its adverse effects, also attacks the governmental policy of licensing and permitting the production and distribution of the tobacco products. The second ammenment rules do not permit it any more except in documentaries which have a limited viewership.

Other than ban on the scenes of smoking in the films, the act also imposes smoking ban in the public places.

Bollywood stars face court action over kiss

Dec 3, 2006

A kissing scene from a movie starring Bollywood actors Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan has irked a lawyer who has filed a criminal case against them, accusing them of obscenity, he said on Sunday.

Shailendra Dwivedi of Indore, near Bhopal, the capital of central Madhya Pradesh state, said the scene from the movie, titled “Dhoom 2,” lowered the dignity of Indian women and gave an obscene message to youth.

“Bollywood actors are conveying vulgarity in the society,” Dwivedi told Reuters. “These films cannot be watched with our families, they are so vulgar at times.”

A local court accepted Dwivedi’s petition to punish the actors and said it would hear the petitioner on December 11.

The Indian censor board, which certifies all films, released the movie with a “parental discretion” certificate.

A majority of Indians frown upon intimacy in public.

Stub out smoking ban: Bollywood

October 09, 2006
Subhash K Jha

MUMBAI: Bollywood is more amused than angry at a proposed ban on smoking in films with Irrfan Khan dismissing the issue, Madhur Bhandarkar asking “how can smoking be controlled” and Rahul Bose calling the move “infantile”.

Maqbool star Irrfan said: “Smoking should be curbed at all costs. But whether smoking is shown in our films has never been a serious issue for me. It’s like trying to nurture the leaves of a tree without caring about the roots.”

Bhandarkar said: “How can there be such a drastically uniform code about smoking? Even if an adult certificate is implemented properly, what about DVDs, satellite television, cable channels? There’re so many avenues for our films…how can smoking be controlled in all of them?”

“And what about Hollywood films? There’re two English releases every Friday. Are we going to stop Brad Pitt from smoking? Our heroes have been holding cigarettes since time immemorial. Ashok Kumar looked so stylish smoking in Kismet! No one is saying smoking is good, but let’s not be carried away,” Bhandarkar, who made films like Corporate and Page Three, said.

Newcomer Sammir Dattani said: “I’m 24 and I’m certainly not going to start smoking just because Shah Rukh Khan does so in Don. It’s absurd to think movies influence your lifestyle and habits. For an earlier generation it may have been cool to watch Amitabh Bachchan with a cigar in Don and to take up smoking because the superhero did it. For our generation, health is wealth. And to make wealth, we need our health. And we don’t need statutory warnings to tell us so.”

English, August actor Rahul added: “I think the idea of a blanket ban on smoking is infantile and ludicrous. Children watch adults smoking all day long, whereas they see someone smoking in a film for just five minutes. There’s one city in the world where smoking is almost non-existent and that’s Los Angeles. In fact, a smoker is almost a pariah in LA! And almost every film from Hollywood has characters smoking. How do we explain that?

“The angry young man of the 1970s created his own law on the screen. How many young people took the law into own hands? Inversely, the poor farmers of China smoke like chimneys. How many films do they watch? I’d say this is the kind of knee-jerk response to smoking that will embarrass the country.”

Director Vipul Shah said: “Tickers for every smoking scene? Let’s have all the crime scenes with the penalty clause. Scenes of drinking shouldn’t be shown in states where booze is banned. Finally, let’s have all MPs who have come up with this brilliant idea write scripts for us. In any case they aren’t doing much for the country.”

Director Vikram Bhatt added: “Smoking is bad, I agree. Nothing should be allowed to encourage smoking. But the film industry is an easy target for populist elements wanting to get famous overnight. Let’s first ban parents from smoking in front of children. Let’s ban all the shops where you get cigarettes. Once that’s done, we’ll discuss smoking in films.”

Director Rituparno Ghosh said: “What are they trying to do? It can’t be an arbitrary decision. Smoking is a social reality. Get to the root of its existence. Prevent passive smoking. Otherwise you’ve no business stopping films from showing it. I’ve never smoked in my life. But how can anyone stop people from smoking by not showing it on screen? Smoking is often a good way to fill up awkward pauses in dialogues and to fill out the frame during serious dialogues. That isn’t to say we should glorify or glamorise smoking. But to ask for an ‘A’ certificate for films with smoking is silly.”

Actor Anupam Kher questioned: “Why doesn’t the health ministry concentrate on more important issues such as child welfare and malnutrition instead of focusing on a non-issue? Surely there are other ways of getting noticed than targeting the film industry on the smallest of pretexts?

“If the visual medium could affect people’s psyche, what about the Ramayan and Mahabharat serials on television? People bathed in the morning and did pooja (prayers) before watching these two serials. Then what happened? Did the crime rate drop? Did Ram rajya (rule) return to our nation? How can anyone think people will stop smoking just because Shah Rukh won’t smoke on screen?”

Actor Madhavan said: “I agree films should contain a suitable warning against smoking. But I don’t know how an ‘A’ certificate in films showing smoking will prevent people from favouring cancer sticks.”

Rakeysh “Rang De Basanti” Mehra said: “Smoking is, of course, bad for health. The government should have the courage and conviction to ban its production, import, distribution and marketing in the country. Films mirror social reality. Eradicate smoking in society and it will vanish from the screen.”

Actor Kunal Kapoor said: “It’s good to know the health ministry is concerned about young people smoking. But movies and their characters depict reality outside the cinematic experience. It’s completely senseless banning something on screen when it’s seen all around us. It’s like trimming the leaves without cutting the roots of a poisonous plant.”

Director Farah Khan agreed: “Why is only the film industry targeted each time? No one says smoking is good for health. But surely there’re more effective ways of curbing it. Will the health ministry provide tax exemption for films where no one is shown smoking? No? Then stop making cinema a soft target.”

Actor K.K Menon laughed. “Ridiculous. Is the minister also going to provide blindfolds to children to stop them from seeing anyone smoking? I don’t advocate smoking. At the same time I detest ‘art’ being made the scapegoat for ills in society. It’s a body of work constantly being stabbed by our self-appointed moral custodians. Most of these custodians don’t have the maturity to understand art. Hence they end up behaving like dictators rather than politicians. The worst crime of murdering art at any given opportunity goes unpunished because art is not tangible.

“A warning about smoking before the film starts is fine. But statutory warnings during the running of the film are a ridiculous suggestion. It again proves how ignorant our moral custodians are about art. They need a crash course in the art of suspension of disbelief that is essential for any art. I wonder if these custodians understand censorship. Censorship isn’t about censoring art but its patrons. Unfortunately, the custodians have the power to chop and mangle art, which they do freely. Art is like a jungle filled with wild flowers and creatures. It isn’t a dull cultivated garden where everything can be controlled.”

Actor Randeep Hooda said: “Nicotine is more addictive than heroin. Every smoker is aware of the harm it causes much more than the ill effects of any other harmful substance. After smoking non-stop for 15 years I suddenly quit smoking not because of any statutory warnings, but of my own free will. I guess I just became concerned about my lungs. I started smoking after watching Bruce Willis’ cool smoking antics. But it was finally my choice, a stupid choice, to smoke.

“This is a free country and one has the freedom to make stupid choices. There should be graphic warning at the beginning and end of a movie, but not during individual scenes. That would hamper the filmmaker’s fundamental right to freedom of expression. It would look preachy. And we all know how the young recoil from sermons. But smoking should definitely be discouraged.”

Don’t blame stars for teen smoking

Sept. 17, 2006
Aarti Kapur Singh
CNN-IBN

Mumbai: Till recently, the blame of promoting smoking amongst young adults was only put on the silver screen and its stars. But now, a study by a Mumbai based NGO states, the problem may actually lie at home.

The results of this study conducted by Salaam Bombay, an NGO which works with children on issues related to tobacco abuse, on nearly 6,400 students aged below 18 has revealed that whether or not children take up smoking at an early age, is also determined by parents who light up.

“They do tell us that our father or somebody at home is chewing tobacco or smoking. So if it is that bad, how are they doing it. So we realised that somewhere adults are influencing the mindsets of children. What we do as parents is what children think is right,” says Senior Project Coordinator, Salaam Bombay Foundation, Devika Chaddha.

According to the study, parents of more than 40 per cent of the respondents consumed tobacco, in one form or another. Almost 40 per cent under the age of 18 had bought tobacco for someone else and 22 per cent of the respondents admitted to have been offered tobacco when they were buying cigarettes for parents at home.

“When a child is going to buy tobacco, the child has access. He may not be 18, but because he is buying it for his parent and it is being sold, the child has easy access. At times, children have also told us that they are receiving free tobacco samples,” Devika says.

So after the smokescreen has been lifted, it might lead the Government, filmmakers and parents to believe that children could be influenced by not just reel, but real life as well.

National Authority for Smoking Ban process

Jun 01, 2006

U nion health minister Anbumani Ramadoss has announced the setting up of a national authority to screen films and television to ensure effective implementation of the anti-tobacco legislation. The actor smoking or using tobacco on screen would also need to state on screen that smoking is injurious for health.

“As per the consensus reached, the national authority would screen all films and television programmes to ensure that they do not depict tobacco use. If the national authority finds that the smoking scene is necessary from the ‘artistic point of view’ then the film would have an advisory against smoking before the screening, in between the film and after its over,” said Ramadoss.

These suggestions are a diluted version of the health ministry’s initial proposal of implementing a blanket ban on smoking and tobacco use on the big and small screens. The health ministry had to make concessions in the face of strong opposition from the Information and Broadcasting ministry and the entertainment industry who accused them of clamping down on the freedom of expression. The matter is now before the Supreme Court.

“A consensus has been reached between I&B; and health ministries on the issue of banning smoking scenes,” Ramadoss said. I&B; minister Priya Ranjan Das Munshi had earlier questioned the ban, asking how a film could show a character like Churchill without a cigar.

He also said a notification making it mandatory for all cigarette boxes and gutka pouches to have pictorial health warnings with direct messages such as smoking kills and smoking causes cancer will be introduced in August.

PMO to sort out tangle over film smoking ban

February 22, 2006

NEW DELHI: The Prime Minister’s Office has been asked by Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss to intervene to facilitate the implementation of a ban on the depiction of smoking in films and television.

With the ministries of health and information and broadcasting failing to reach consensus on modalities for implementing the ban proposed by Ramadoss, the minister approached Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to resolve the matter.

According to official sources, Cabinet Secretary B.K. Chaturvedi has been asked to chart out a solution along with officials of the two ministries.

“He is likely to meet the officials of the two ministries in the first week of March,” they said.

The sources said the issue has become very sensitive as the health ministry had taken it up as a prestige issue. On the other hand, the information and broadcasting ministry – despite finding it difficult to implement the ban – cannot strike it down completely.

While the health ministry has been backing a complete ban on smoking in films and television, the information and broadcasting ministry has been looking for ways to implement the ban in a milder form with various exemptions.

The issue has also reached the courts, with filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt mounting a legal challenge in Delhi High Court against the ban in September 2005, saying it would suppress an individual’s right of expression and meddle with the creativity of an artiste.

He said the ban was contrary to the Cinematographic Act.

Ramadoss to discuss on-screen smoking ban

Jan 20, 2006

NEW DELHI: U nion Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss on Thursday said he would take up the matter of banning on-screen smoking with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry but clarified that the Ministry would go ahead with the proposed prohibition.

“I will talk to the I and B Ministry on the issue,” he told reporters at the Sixth Social Editors Conference here a day after I and B Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said imposing the ban was not an easy task. “We are going to move forward, but the matter is now in court,” he said.

Once a ruling was passed, the Ministry would take action as per the ruling, he said adding that his Ministry’s initiative was in accordance with the Anti-Tobacco Act. Reacting to Mr. Dasmunsi’s suggestion that smoking should not be glamorised, he said the provision in this regard was already present in the Indian Cinematography Act but it had not been implemented. He said the Ministry had already given concessions to historical characters depicting the use of tobacco and said the campaign was catching up with the people while quoting film star Amitabhs apology for promoting smoking in an advertisement.

He said the Government had already prepared a draft notification to prohibit use of tobacco and alcohol in food items, prohibiting the sale of “tobacco-laced gutka.” The notification was likely to be finalised in a few months, he added.

Outright ban on smoking in films was not practical:

Dasmunshi New Delhi
January 18, 2006

U nion Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi today reiterated that an outright ban cannot be imposed on showing smoking on screen but his Ministry was cooperating with the Health Ministry directive in this regard by way of campaigning among filmmakers and script writers.

”We have written to filmmakers appealing them not to glamorise smoking in film but show it only if it is required by the character,” Mr Dasmunsi said replying to questions at the Editors Conference on Social Sector Issues here.

”You can not show a Churchill without a cigar and a Devdas without being drunk,” he said elaborating his remarks.

The only improtant thing to bear in mind was that smoking should have no motivation, the Minister said.”An outright ban was neither feasible nor practical,” he added.

He said he was in touch with the Health Ministry and would fully cooperate in strengthening the social campaign against smoking.

The Minister, however, said the matter was subjudice, so he would not like to say anything further on the issue.

Replying to another question, he justified the sensor Board’s decision to refer the film ‘Rang de Basanti’ to the Defence Ministry for editing.

To a question on Prasar Bharati Act, he said he has had a long meeting with the Prime Minister over the scope of the existing Act and the Group of Minister may also examine all aspects relating to the matter. The government will come out with some results soon , he added.

I&B; looks for way out of smoking ban

January 01, 2006
Himanshi Dhawan

NEW DELHI: Imagine your favorite hero asking you not to smoke before you settle to down to enjoy the blockbuster film. Watchable? Officials hope so.

This is just one of the suggestions being considered as a way out of the on-screen smoking ban by Information and Broadcasting ministry.

Officials believe that instead of implementing the smoking ban notified by the health ministry, more effective and less intrusive methods could be used to discourage smoking amongst people especially youngsters.

For instance, actors could be roped in to give public interest messages during the movie. “The public message can be slotted at the beginning and end of the film and during the interval.

Cinema halls can be involved and asked to screen these 2-3 minute films,” an I&B; official said. Another suggestion is to add an advisory to a film, which depicts smoking, so that people are dissuaded from experimenting with tobacco.

Smoking ban in, TV serials to miss deadline for third time

December 30, 2005

With the Health and Information and Broadcasting ministries yet to smoke the peace pipe over slapping a ban on smoking scenes in films and TV serials from January 1, film-makers and soap producers have been given a respite to go ahead with the scenes depicting smoking.

In effect, the twice-postponed ban on smoking, turned into a stylised pursuit by celluloid icons, would also miss the newest deadline — January 1, 2006 — for the third time.

The first deadline — August 15 — was announced by Health Minister A Ramadoss on World Anti-Tobacco Day on May 31. Later, the date had been put off to October 2 following representations from the entertainment industry which got support from the I&B; ministry.

Filing an affidavit in Delhi High Court on December 2, the last date of hearing, the I&B; ministry said it shared the concern of the Health Ministry to impose a ban on showing the use of tobacco products in films and television, but the creative expression of artists should not be curbed.

The ministry also said it would follow the rules enumerated in various cinematograph laws before imposing the ban.

The court asked the Counsel to iron out the differences and come with a concrete proposal by January 13, the next date of hearing.

Producing a copy of the May 31 gazette notification in the court, the Health Ministry had said ”no individual or a person or a character in cinema and TV programmes shall display tobacco products or their use except while depicting a real historical figure.” Exception would be in the case of ”depiction of smoking scenes in live coverage of news, public meetings etc being telecast on TV if it is purely incidental and completely unintentional,” it said.

In case of foreign films, it is mandatory for the producer and distributor to include anti-tobacco health spots of 30 seconds to be screened at the beginning and end of the film. In case of old TV serials, the channel would have to place an anti-tobacco health warning as scroll at the bottom.

On September 26, Bollywood director-producer Mahesh Bhat had challenged the government’s direction to ban smoking scenes in films and TV serials, saying it would violate the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the Constitution.

Mr Priyaranjan Das Munsi, the new I&B; Minister, holds that a total ban is ”not feasible”. His prescription is that cinema halls could run a prominent statutory warning on the harmful effects of smoking whenever someone is shown smoking on screen. Further, filmmakers could air a clip with the actor justifying the need for him to smoke in a particular scene.

Onscreen smoking ban deferred

Differences between the ministries of Health and Information & Broadcasting have forced the Centre to defer its decision to implement the onscreen smoking ban from January 1.

Additional Solicitor General (ASG) P P Malhotra told the Delhi High Court that the ban would come into effect from March 1, 2006, and not from January 1, 2006, as scheduled.

This is the second time that the Centre has deferred the decision to impose a ban on onscreen smoking, which was originally notified to come into effect from October 2 this year.

A division bench of Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice H R Malhotra, which is hearing a petition filed by noted Bollywood producer-director Mahesh Bhatt against the onscreen smoking ban, has asked the two ministries to sort out the differences and fixed January 13 for further hearing.

Differences between the Information & Broadcasting (I&B;) Ministry and the Health Ministry have come to the fore.

In an affidavit filed in the court, the I&B; Ministry said it shared the other ministry’s concern and supported its anti-smoking campaign but maintained that “the curbs on smoking visuals, etc., have to be within the confines of Articles 19 of the Constitution keeping in view the tenets of artistic freedom and creative expressions being not unduly curbed”.

The ministry also pointed out “the film and television industry themselves have agreed to assist in propagation of the Health Ministry’s anti-smoking campaign through alternative action”.

The I&B; Ministry said the clauses in the rules framed by the Health Ministry to ban onscreen smoking can be implemented only under the Cinematograph Act and Cable TV Networks (Regulations) Act through appropriate amendments.
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On-screen smoking ban: Govt ready for exemptions

November 10, 2005

NEW DELHI, Defending the notification banning smoking on screen, the Centre today informed the Delhi High Court that it was willing to provide certain ‘exemptions’’, including allowing use of tobacco by actors depicting historical personalities.

‘‘After considering the views expressed by various stakeholders, the government is considering to provide exemptions,’’ the affidavit, filed by the Health Ministry, said. The court was hearing a petition by film director Mahesh Bhatt challenging the Centre’s ban on smoking on-screen.

The proposed exemptions would cover the depiction of smoking and use of tobacco products with regard to historical personalities and eras or during live telecast and documentaries on the ill-effects of the products, the affidavit said.

The affidavit defended the notification on the ground it evoked wide support from a larger section of the society. ‘‘The restriction under the rules are required to be imposed in furtherance of the objectives and provisions of the act and to protect the right to health of public which is included in right to life,’’ the government said.

The court has adjourned the hearing to December 2 when the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is expected to file its reply.

Ban not applicable…

• Depiction of smoking and use of tobacco products pertaining to historical personalities and eras

• During live telecast

• Documentaries on ill-effects of tobacco products

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India film smoking ban now in court

October 1, 2005

NEW DELHI, India (UPI) — A noted moviemaker in India has mounted a court challenge to a government order banning the showing of smoking scenes in Indian movies or on television.

The petition filed by Mahesh Bhatt in Delhi high court says the order, set to go into effect Sunday, violates constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression, the BBC reported.

The government maintains the ban, which has the support of health activists, is needed to discourage star-crazed youngsters from emulating their movie heroes lighting up on the screen. The ban would also require all shows already produced, Indian or foreign, to prominently carry a warning about the smoking scenes.

The court started the hearing and immediately postponed proceedings until November. As a result, the ban`s implementation is likely to be delayed until January, the report said. About 800,000 Indians die from smoking-related diseases every year.

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