'Ban on condom ads is out of sync with reality of times'

Mogae Media President Sandeep Goyal says Advertising Standards Council of India is 'largely toothless'

Safe sex is not a classroom or family discussion in India and successive governments have done little to propagate it at a policy level. The information and Broadcasting Ministry has now issued a blanket ban on condom advertisements from 6 am to 10

pm on television (TV). The directive, triggered by an outdoor advertising campaign by Manforce, says the ads are indecent and can create "unhealthy practices" among children. Mogae Media President Sandeep Goyal tells Veer Arjun Singh that the ban is unproductive, ineffective and only a symbolic move to please the old Indian sensibilities.

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