Check this out.
Indian women are number 3 in the world when it comes to smoking (Indian men are joint number 5)! They are only behind the US (not surprising) and Bangladeshi (!) women. I guess most of them are from the rural areas, and this could be true about Bangladesh as well where tobacco is a major crop.
I wonder what Anbumani Ramadoss, the honourable health minister of India, self-declared anti-smoking activist who decreed not so long ago that employers (read male smokers) could not smoke in the presence of their maid without her permission, would have to say about this. What plans does he have to stop women from smoking? None as of now and I do not see any in the future as well, simply because most of the women smokers happen to reside in villages and banning smoking in villages could have a direct impact on the votes!
Anbumani is a bugger and a tokkeshwar. I hate this fellow.
Indian women, who fight for 30% reservation in everything, seems to have won their first battle. Now they will compete in drinking and go forward.
Njoy
Social Smoking re!
I personally know nearabout 10 women who smoke! It is all part and parcel of the fast-paced city life
You mean most of the smoking happens in the cities? I disagree!
Beedi Smoking also is prevalent in the villages and hamlets but that mayn’t be easy to count! U xpect ppl in the villages to say ‘yah! I smoke bidi’ to a surveyor with a pen n pad in his hand?? No chance!
Most of the stats are from the sale of Cigarettes which are easier to track than Beedis.
Err…these are figures from the American Cancer Society and not the results of a survey…
I belong to a conservative south Indian family. Way back in mid sixties I had observed my pious mother’s stelalthy smoking habit. She used to puff away both in preseance and absence of my father. My dad always used to keep a pack of mild mentholated cigarettes(cool) in his desk for mother’s consumption. Except this one occational habit, she lived a life in perfect harmony with her time and age. To this day I am intrigued by the fact, how she picked up and cultivated the dirty habit when it was considered as a social stigma.