Bollywood runs ?A? risk for on-screen smoking

FOR ADULTS only ? sex, excess violence and now smoking. Filmmakers might end up with 'A' certificates for their movies if the big bad villain chews a cigar or the macho hero lights a fag on screen.

Published on: Jul 8, 2006, 01:45:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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FOR ADULTS only — sex, excess violence and now smoking. Filmmakers might end up with 'A' certificates for their movies if the big bad villain chews a cigar or the macho hero lights a fag on screen.

The I&B Ministry has apparently agreed to the Health Ministry's suggestion that a movie with smoking scenes be certified 'for adults only'—that is, only viewers above 18 can watch it, at least in cinemas.

So if stars like Shah Rukh Khan don't want to lose fans under 18, they may have to shun smoking on screen. The clause is not be restricted to Indian movies alone. Spider-Man 3 will also be off-limits for children if the proposal becomes law. Sources said the decision was based on a 2003 WHO study —'Bollywood: Victim or Ally' —which spoke about the influence of smoking in movies on younger audience.

Filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, who has filed a petition in the Delhi HC against the smoking ban, refused to comment on the move, saying the matter was sub judice. "We believe that the censor board has enough powers to prune scenes glamorising smoking," he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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