Mega-star Amitabh Bachchan once disclosed at Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmadabad about his not advertising for cola-drinks after a school-student at Jaipur drew his attention about harmful ingredients in cola-drinks. It is significant that cola-companies voluntarily stopped selling cola-drinks in schools worldwide in view of increasing obesity in school-going children. Indian government should also not only ban advertisements but even sale of cola drinks in the country. Earlier also, soft-drink manufacturers were asked to remove an oil from their products which was found to be harmful for health. It is time that Union government, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) and soft-drink manufacturers should revive drinks like old and famous rose-flavoured ones, which can not only replace cola-drinks in India but even dominate global-market by breaking monopoly of harmful cola-drinks in tune with Prime Minister’s ambitious ‘Make in India’ concept. It will rather earn foreign-revenue for the country rather than Indian money being drained out to multinational cola-manufacturers.
Madhu Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
