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Advertisement of fairness-creams

Kashmir Times. Dated: 5/18/2017 11:25:05 PM

Dear Editor,
Advertisements for fairness-cream can be misleading because there is no guarantee of complexion becoming fair after use so-termed ‘fairness-cream’. Otherwise also, media-reports indicate that Delhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Research (DIPSR), an undertaking of Government of Delhi affiliated to University of Delhi, has determined that facial creams advertising for bringing fairness contain excessive quantity of mercury which is very harmful for kidney and lever apart from causing other harms to human body. India ranks second in the world after Nigeria in use of facial cream for increasing fairness with as much as fifty-percent of Indian population being misled by advertisements of fairness through facial creams.
Central government should immediately impose a total and strict ban on advertisements of fairness-creams. Also packs of any facial/body cream/product must not be allowed to carry word ‘facial’ or likewise directly or indirectly. It may be recalled that Parliamentarian Viplove Thakur (HP) raised on 26.07.2016 in Rajya Sabha important issue of banning advertisements of fairness-creams mainly because these create in inferiority complex amongst those women who do not have a bright/fair complexion, apart from creating a sort of racism. Unfortunately matrimonial advertisements reveal that people by and large prefer fair-coloured brides!
—Subhash Chandra Agrawal,
1775 Kucha Lattushah
Dariba, Chandni Chowk Delhi