<i>India bans smoking in public</i>
Next time you light up the rolled tobacco in public places in India, be ware. A ban on smoking imposed by Indian government went into force from October 2 coinciding with the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi.
The ban, opposed by tobacco firms and hotel industry, covers offices, hotels, restaurants, hospitals, college campuses, bars and discotheques.
The law provides for a fine of five US dollars for those violating the ban on smoking in public places.
Airports, hotels with 30 or more rooms or restaurants with a seating capacity of 30 or more will be allowed separate smoking areas.
People will, however, still be allowed to smoke in their homes, cars, while walking on the street and in open spaces like parks. But smoking in trains and buses has been barred.
Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, who passionately championed the anti-tobacco drive, himself took the lead to enforce the ban on smoking in public places when he took to the streets in Chennai, the capital of his home state Tamil Nadu, on Thursday while distributing pamphlets against puffing.
Ramadoss' drive for a ban on smoking scenes in films had at one point of time saw him picking up a war of words with Bollywood's two superstars Shahrukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan who contended that this would impact on the creativity of cinema.
However, Khan, a smoker, has welcomed the ban. “A better step would be to ban cigarettes, make them illegal and hang anyone found smoking. But we can't do that because we are a democratic country. This is the second best thing, which we should welcome”, the actor told television channels.
The health minister said a survey has found that more than 50 percent of youths take to smoking after watching Bollywood superstars doing so.
A recent study in New England journal of Medicine said India is in the grip of a smoking epidemic that is likely to kill one million people a year by 2010.
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