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The newspaper advertisements of Madhur Bhandarkar's upcoming movie "Heroine", that features lead actress Kareena Kapoor with a cigarette on movie sets, have drawn flak for blatant violation of anti-tobacco laws.
In a letter written to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, NGO Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth (HRIDAY) points out violation of law, regulating display of tobacco use in films.
"Leading national dailies (on May 23) and online versions of several newspapers carried an 'on the sets' photograph of 'Heroine'. The picture shows actress Kareena Kapoor smoking a cigarette and holding a glass of amber colour liquid, depicted as alcohol," the letter said.
"This amounts to a blatant violation of the Rule 9(2) of the said notification," the letter addressed to Khurshid Ahmed Ganai, joint secretary in the information and broadcasting ministry read.
The letter cited the notification saying that "any promotional material and posters of the films and television programmes shall not depict any tobacco products or their usage in films".
"It is a violation of Section 5 of Control of Tobacco Products Act, which prohibits all forms of advertisement (direct, indirect/surrogate), promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products."
The HRIDAY letter has also asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB) and the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), as the implementing agencies of the rules, to direct the promoters and filmmakers to recall the promotional content.
"We strongly urge MoIB to check for the compliance of such scenes with the notified regulations at the time of screening for acquiring certification from the CBFC," it said.
While the movie is slated to release Sep 21, the activists have expressed concern over the promo leaving adverse impact on people.
"We are concerned that till then this photograph would make rounds in the media leaving an adverse impact on the public especially, women and children," said Radhika Shrivastav, deputy director, HRIDAY.
"There is a very high prevalence of tobacco use among Indian women with nearly 20 percent of them using tobacco in various forms. Studies have also shown that Indian adolescents who are exposed to tobacco use in Bollywood films are twice as likely to be tobacco users," Shrivastav added.
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To Fri, 2012-07-27 06:19 — Anonymous - what you say is right, not everyone has wisdom. They repeat 100000000 times to themselves they are smartest but they are known to dig their own graves..destiny cannot be changed
Aishwarya Rai, Madhuri Dixit Nene, Sonali Bendre, Shilpa Shetty, Kajol Devgan are way smarter and know how to be remembered as shining rising heroines so they exited gracefully, some got married to people who were clearly not as well established as them but moved on....Some others like Preity, Rani, Tabu fell in the trap of decline for all to see. Rani though is getting married this yr it seems, Adi just gifted her an Audi. Tabu was never mainstream.
Its a boring Movie, They need as much publicity as they can get
Kitty- time after time you have shown your jealousy.
R u getting Kareena cofused with Badchalan Ass,s Pariwar,
Who will do anything for publicity.
And you will lick their---
to show your blind support.
Heroine is the real life story of film actress's greed, fraudulent ways, manipulation of people, media and rich businessmen while climbing up, and the ego, spite, jealousy leading to her fall. They say it is real life story of Preity Zinta and gives peek into why she is not marrying.
sunidhi chauhan is best.
Her Mother in law is director of Censor board, i am sure this film will get a green signal...
Of course this was done on purpose to garner more publicity and more press.
of course, this movie will lead to controversies, but it's like cocktail-it gets you pumped up.
Publicity stunt
Where? I did not see one cigarette.
this has to happen we will hear so many new controversies in coming days related
to Heroine