No small wonder, either readers of dailies published in different languages, including English or viewers of programmes in their millions blared by various television channels across the country throughout the year don’t get exposed to products manufactured in two sectors that command monetary value of production in astronomical proportions. One, of course, is the sector that has never lagged behind in helping the patrons of its products, the heady fluid, to take the mounting blues of life as it were in their stride, at least for a while as the dusk falls at the end of each day. The sector also offers products in a comfortable range of price tags and variety to choose from. The other dividends that accrue to the patrons of these products such as status among peers, earning friends during fellowships, camaraderie in inebriated state and so on cannot be measured in exact monetary terms.

The second sector, keeping august company with the aforementioned first, is the pharmaceutical industry with an estimated monetary value of its products at nearly 2,00,000 crore rupees in a year. It is only a part of the country’s larger health sector with an estimated economic value of more than two times of this amount. The point of wonder is that both sectors have kept free of the media to popularise their products unlike virtual every other product under the sun.

One is prompted to accord special and distinguished profile to the products of the two sectors mentioned above, namely their patrons and the needy chase those products, unfazed by their price tag while all the rest of consumer goods in the range of cosmetics to cars, attires to ornaments and so on chase their patronising consumers, cutting across the entire cross section of society. The Fast Moving Consumer-Goods (FMCG) majors, including packaged foods and non-alcoholic beverages, are known to loosen their purse for advertising their products. The sore point is the strategy of luring the gullible mass in the country, notably its literati, with fancy claims such as hair-growth for a lush lock, sharper memory, fair skin, weight loss to look slim ‘N’ trim, increase in height, driving away the mosquitoes and what have you.

The battle lines between the corporates as well as the sundries on one side and the administration in its role as regulator are not exactly drawn. Two latest moves, one by AYUSH body joining the Advertisement Standards Council of India against misleading ads and the government mulling tighter rules relating to aggressive ads hint at better days for the consuming public. Tardy implementation of the rules is the only hitch.