Public Health on Top

Battle of Mind (BoM) primarily aims to promote its brand and mislead policymakers in guise of employment generation. British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) has been organizing the event since 2004 to inspire youths on smoking, promote their brands and influence the policymakers. Like the past years, BATB has launched BoM 2017 and has already completed registration process and road shows in universities. Moreover, BATB has used facebook live to allure youths in this competition. A few days later, BoM 2017 grand-finale will be held in presence of policymakers. Apart from the anti-tobacco platforms’ pressure, the relevant ministry intervention is highly required. Remarkably, in past 13 years (from 2004 – 2016), BATB has employed only around 110-120 candidates among 20-22 thousand participants though the event is termed as ‘employment platform’ by BATB. But it spends a huge amount of money for road shows, entertainment, media publicity and other activities. The ‘Bengal Classical Musical Festival’ has been cancelled this year. A big gratitude for the government by disallowing the Army Stadium for the purpose. Notably, ITC Sangeet Research Academy (ITC-SRA) is the co-organizer of Bengal Classical Music Festival and a wing of Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) - the largest tobacco company in India where BATB has around 30 percent share too. Hence, ITC-SRA not solely aims to promote classical music in Bangladesh rather assists BATB business expansion noiselessly.
Tobacco company evil activities should be stopped using the existing tobacco control law effectively and by formulating policies after FCTC Article 5.3 because tobacco company is the largest hindrance for a ‘Tobacco-free Bangladesh’.