‘Vulgar’ underwear ads banned

The government bans two underwear commercials - Lux Cozy and Amul Macho - claiming them to be indecent, vulgar and suggestive, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Jul 27, 2007, 03:38:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government on Thursday banned two underwear advertisements — Lux Cozy and Amul Macho — claiming them to be “indecent, vulgar and suggestive.

The Information and Broadcasting ministry has instructed all television channels to stop showing the advertisement with immediate effect. The ads have been considered "indecent, vulgar and suggestive" and thus violative of Rule 7 (8) of the Advertising Code, the Ministry said in its order.

The Amul Macho ad showed a newly-wed woman suggestively washing her husband’s innerwear at a dhobi ghat.

The advertisements were being shown on many channels including Star Plus, India TV, NDTV and IBN 7.

The ban has been imposed under the advertising code, which prohibits the showing of any indecent advertisements on television.

The ministry in April has issued an advisory to all channels asking them to be more careful in selection of content of advertisements and strictly adhere to the Advertising Code.

When the advertisements continued, the ban was imposed, the ministry 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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