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 India's Model for Monitoring Implementation of the Global Tobacco Treaty and Successfully Challenging Industry Interference According to the WHO, five million people around the world die each year from tobacco related illnesses. Nearly 800,000 of these deaths occur each year in India. With a population of more than one billion people, India is critical in the movement to reverse the global tobacco epidemic. In response to this staggering death toll, the Indian government was a courageous leader in the creation of a strong enforceable global tobacco treaty and was the 8th country to ratify the treaty. Now, as countries around the world implement the treaty, India is once again leading the way in implementing, monitoring and enforcing the treaty. At the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in July 2006, the Indian Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, announced the creation of a National Regulatory Authority to enforce India’s tobacco control laws and coordinate the other Ministries to ensure that they also enforce the laws within their authority. In addition to this strong government action, public health and corporate accountability advocates have banded together to monitor the implementation of these public health policies. One example is the TambakooKills Weekly Monitor Project dedicated to monitoring the tobacco industry’s compliance with India’s laws by encouraging civil society to report evidence-based content. In weekly correspondence with the more than 1,700 members on the electronic forum TambakooKills,the moderators encourage members to report violations of India’s Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act and the global tobacco treaty. Each week the TambakooKills Monitor highlights different provisions of the law and activists across the country respond with reports about how the tobacco industry is complying or violating these provisions in their communities. Since the TambakooKills Monitor formed in January 2006, it has exposed and challenged several incidents of the industry’s attempts to violate tobacco control policy. The TambakooKills Monitor exposed Philip Morris/Altria’s recent advertising campaign that exploits loopholes in India’s ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship. Cars are being painted with the Marlboro logo and then driven on the streets of major cities in India. The TambakooKills Monitor also exposed frequent media columnist Raj Chatterjee as a former executive of Imperial Tobacco Company, which is majority owned by BAT. Chatterjee has authored several articles and op-eds that have been printed in The Tribune that glamorize tobacco and neglect to disclose the author’s affiliation with the tobacco corporation. TambakooKills Monitor is now the largest eGroup listed by YahooGroups UK and Ireland in the healthcare category! And India’s governmental and non-governmental leadership in monitoring and enforcing the global tobacco treaty can serve as an example to other Parties to the global tobacco treaty.
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Global Tobacco Treaty Action Guide 2008
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