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NGOs root for pictorial warnings on fag packs
NEW DELHI: As a group of ministers meet on Tuesday to take a decision on pictorial warnings on all tobacco products, voluntary organisations are building pressure to introduce more effective warnings and save millions of lives. The GoM headed by Minister for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee is likely to clear the content of pictorial warnings suggested by ministries of health and information and broadcasting. While the health ministry has approved grisly real-life pictures including one showing a child dying due to effects of smoking and another of mouth cancer, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has suggested pictures that are less harsh. Apart from Mukherjee, Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy and Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes will attend the meeting. The GoM was set up in May last year by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh following a controversy after the health ministry announced it would soon issue directions that all tobacco products should bear a skull-and-crossbones logo and pictorial warnings. After the six ministers first met in May, parliament passed a bill in September, saying that pictorial warnings in cigarette packets on tobacco products be implemented by Oct 1, 2007. But it is yet to be implemented, as the GoM has to take a decision on the content of the pictorial warnings. The controversial bill, which has been contested by various political parties, said that the skull-and-cross-bones logo is “optional”.  |
