India's health minister, Anbamani Ramadoss has told Bollywood superstars to stop setting a bad example by smoking in public. He added, " I would like to make an appeal, not only to Mr Shah Rukh Khan, but also to Amitabh Bachchan and to all the other personalities. that children are being affected." Mr Ramadoss, who has been campaigning for a ban on smoking on screen, said he was 'very concerned about (the) alarming rise of incidences of young people getting addicted to tobacco.' The minister said his plea was for an end to smoking in public but also in films. "There shouldn't be any smoking scenes in movies, we have statistics showing that 52 per cent of children have their first puff of cigarette due to celebrities smoking on screen." At least 2,200 people die daily from tobacco-related diseases in India, a nation of 1.1 billion people boasting the world's highest number of cinema attendances. Both Bachchan and Khan, currently Bollywood's most popular leading men, have been criticised on a number of occasions by an anti-smoking groups for violating the 2004 ban and smoking in public. In October, the National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication slapped a legal notice on the 42-year-old Khan, asking him to explain his actions after he was spotted smoking at a cricket match and at a media conference. Besides outlawing smoking in public places, the government also banned adverts for tobacco products in 2004 to try and stem rampant tobacco deaths.

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