India Planning Several Measures On Smoking Scenes In Films
The Centre is planning several measures to restrict the depiction of smoking in films, including “adult” certificates to all movies with smoking scenes and the setting up of a committee to screen such scenes, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said today.“In response to (filmmaker) Mahesh Bhatt’s petition in the Supreme Court, the information and broadcasting and health ministries are planning on filing a joint petition in which we have outlined several measures,” Ramadoss told reporters here.
“These include setting up of a committee that will screen all scenes in movies that have smoking. The director or producer will have to clarify why such a scene had to be used.
“Other measures include giving an ‘adult’ certificate to movies that have scenes in which a character is smoking. Also, the actor playing such a character will have to appear at the beginning, during and after the film to say that smoking is injurious to health,” Ramdoss said.
Producers will have to feature a message saying that smoking is injurious to health during that particular scene, Ramadoss said.
“We strongly feel the film industry should have some moral self-restraint. Studies have shown that currently, 89 per cent of all movies depict characters smoking, and they should realise that this is a bad influence on the youth,” he said.
Emphasising that the government was not against the movie industry, Ramadoss said though movies showed rich and well-off persons smoking, it was the poor who were most affected in reality.
— PTI
No comments:
Post a Comment