Death Marketing -2

‘Battle of Minds 2014’ Grand Finale held

Battle of Minds 2014 - the illegal employment competition of the British American Tobacco Bangladesh (BATB) has been held in capital’s Radisson Blu Water Garden hotel on December 08, 2014 where pupils of top 16 renowned universities participated as contestants. As a part of the competition, BATB had organized road shows in the campuses of the participating universities. But according to the ‘Smoking & tobacco products usages (control) Act, 2005 (amended 2013)’ of Bangladesh BATB cannot organize and sponsor such kinds of competition. To protect the youths from the BATB clutch, anti-tobacco platforms issued letters to respective authorities to stop the event, and even the demand of closure of the Battle of Minds 2014 secured a high position on media, but each of the effort went in vain. It is to be noted that BATB officially launched this competition in the month of September at Dhaka University’s IBA auditorium. The slogan for this year’s competition was “Are you next in the Legacy of Leaders?” Initially the last date of registration for this competition was October 15 but later it extended up to October 30, 2014. In the name of employment, BATB has been organizing such death marketing event since 2004. The anti-tobacco platforms demand immediate necessary actions by the government to stop the illegal employment event from the next year.