books on shivaji banned, dance bars banned, television channels banned, rakhi sawant shows banned, and now sex education banned. after this in a day or two the decision will come out that cheer leaders in IPL banned. the list continues. where is it going to end?
the maharashtra govt believes that indian culture and values are offended by sex education in schools. thats why they have decided that children should not be taught about various aspects of human sexual behavior in school. and they have banned it in all schools across the state including CBSE and ICSC. this decision of the state govt was supported by all our ignorant, stupid, insane, wicked, nescient and inefficient politicians, cutting across party lines. they seem to pay no attention to the concerns of educationists or parents on this issue. and yeah, they would not agree for an open debate on this because they believe through ban the issue will be solved. maharashtra is home to around one in five of all people living with HIV in india. this ban would certainly make things worse.
now…………how and from where children are going to learn about human sexual behavior? we all know that indian parents rarely discuss matters related to sex openly with their children. so like all their previous generations, todays children also have no option but to discover the facts of life for themselves through experiments or watching kama sutra dvd.
at a time when around 3.6 million indians are living with HIV, when india dreams of becoming a global super power with a liberal and progressive culture,
- how justified is the maharashtra govt in baning sex education?
- should we trust our politicians dealing with this issue, when all of them are fuckin interested in pleasing certain vote banks?
have your say.
currently, cigarette packets sold in india carry only a statutory text warning, ‘cigarette smoking is injurious to health‘. this is in a fairly small font size, at the bottom of the packets which hardly gets noticed. if i may put an image here of a fairly common brand of cigarette in india called, ‘wills classic milds‘. at the bottom of the image you can notice (may not read properly) a thin line of text. wells thats the warning that cigarette packets here in india carry.
but come june, things are going to change. all packets of tobacco products sold in india are required to carry pictorial warnings in a bid to deter people from smoking. in this regard the union health ministry has issued the final notification. the notification says,
“every person engaged directly or indirectly in the production, supply, import and distribution of tobacco products should ensure that every package has the specified health warning. the warnings will have to occupy 40% of the principal display area of the pack. none of the elements of the specified warning are severed, covered or hidden in any manner when the packet is sealed. no package can be sold unless it carries the health warnings.”
the ministry has also finalized on a set of images to be used on the packages.
hands down you will agree with me that these images look gruesome.
now i don’t know, how i will react when i see these on my packet of smoke? but my question is, why does the government bully smokers in this way? not undermining the health risks involved with smoking, ultimately, it comes down to an individual’s right to choose when it comes to personal risk. i have only two points to make here.
- if the government is really worried about health issues, would it not be doing the same exercise of putting pictorial warnings on bottles of alcohol? but our government does not seem to be thinking about that. the truth is alcohol lobbying groups are much stronger and the govt does not want to offend them.
- and if smoking is really so dangerous and anti-social, why does not the government make it illegal? you know they won’t do it. simply because they generate huge amounts of revenue in excise duty from tobacco products. to make smoking illegal means, they will loose out on a huge sum of revenue.
have anything to say ? drop a comment.
