Young India Network for Good Health

After 17 years of being a dry state, Mizoram is relaxing its curbs on alcohol. Ratnadip Choudhury  explains how the booze ban was a bane in the Christian-dominated state James Pachuau, 23, takes out his Royal Enfield motorcycle every late afternoon and zips down the roads of Mizoram’s capital Aizawl, towards Lengpui on the outskirts, where the state has its lone airport. He parks his bike with several others lined up on the roadside. Hundreds of Mizo youth in their 20s and 30s are gathering in front of a group of shacks where Zu, Mizoram’s locally brewed liquor, is sold. Bootleggers hover around, making discreet deals for foreign liquor, sold at three times the MRP and often spurious. They earn in lakhs and it is anybody’s guess that they cannot be operating without taking Excise Department officials and policemen into confidence. It’s an everyday af fair in a state where alcohol has been banned for the past 17 years. And in this period, more than 1,700 people have been treated fo

The ruling Congress-led UDF in Kerala has decided to shut down over 700 liquor bars attached to hotels below the five-star categories besides make Sundays "dry days." The decision, taken in a meeting of the UDF leadership presided by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, also marked the resolution of the long-drawn feud in the state unit of the Congress and the coalition over the question of renewing licences of 418 bars which were found to be lacking in quality. The decisions will be formally recommended to the Chandy Cabinet to act upon. The UDF leadership had earlier resolved to take firm measures to bring down availability of liquor to the common man and take the state to its goal of "total prohibition" in a phased manner. Briefing reporters after the meeting, Chandy said the 418 bars which had been lying closed since April this year would not be re-opened. Also, another 312 bars will be closed down, subject to legal advice. In case there were some legal hit

Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook In India, alcohol is not as common as in the Western world (remember: Europe is the region in the world that consumes alcohol most heavily.). Alcohol in India is a controlled and luxury item unlike packaged water or juice. But also India is burdened by alcohol harm and therefore we advocate for better regulations on local and state level as well as for a national alcohol policy. Some regulations are in place already. For instance regulations concerning labelling and packaging. The bottle and package design gives the alcohol product a deceptive identity instead of introducing the customer to the ingredients honestly. Alcoholic beverages are not classified as single ingredient foods and so the manufacturer in foreign countries needs to follow the labelling requirement as per “The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India” (  http://www.fssai.gov.in/ ) (Packaging and Labelling) Regulations, 2011. Recently this measure has drawn at