All Talk and No Action Thursday, October 2, 2008


After a Lonnng Time…a very good decision has come by from the Apex Court.

Come October 2 and smoking shall be banned in all public places in the country.

It didn't matter that heavyweights like ITC & Indian Hotels Association were petitioners against the notification.

Three of the best lawyers of the nation - Harish Salve, Arun Jaitley & Rohinton Nariman represented the companies. Though, I am surprised, that a man of Jaitley's stature moved against such a sentence.

Yet, that's another story altogether.

Filhaal, am very happy for now ! :)

Let's just hope that we have stringent measures in place to enforce this law.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Der aaye Durust aaye. Public smoking is banned in around 61 countries. A good first step for India. Lets hope smoking is banned from private places as well.

As far as implementation goes, we can learn from Chandigarh which was the first Indian city to go smoke free. http://chandigarh.tobaccofreeindia.com/

All Talk and No Action said...

@India unbound -

I agree.

Though I wish, the penalty amount should be increased. Mere 200/- wouldn't help !

BS.. said...

Making such a decision and implementing it, is an altogether different matter..

I remember Kerala had passed a law which restricted smoking in public places as long back as 1999-2000 but I don't think it was implemented correctly.
Yes, people were afraid to smoke publicly for a year or so but then slowly things started returning to normal...

All Talk and No Action said...

@PsW -
I hope this time we get both our acts right - decision making & implementation.

Studies show India could lose 1 million people annually, 2010 onwards if it doesn't contain this habit.

Grim situation if not acted upon now.