Former India manager Madan Lal thinks it's not a moment too soon. He believes sportsmen shouldn't promote alcohol or tobacco because it is harmful. "And if they are not into it personally there is no reason why they should endorse it," he says.

Liquor has become big business for satellite networks, generating as much as Rs 100 crore in revenue. According to Doordarshan Audience Research estimates, alcoholadvertising was the No. 1 revenue generator for satellite channels in 1996. DD Audience Research Director BS Chandrasekhar points out that even terrestrial television has a considerable amount of surrogate liquor advertising.

Yet ministerial good intentions may flounder in the choppy waters of international market realities. AK Singh, country head of Brown and Forman, the company that manufactures Southern Comfort and Jack Daniels, insists there is little that the Government of India can do to bar alcohol advertising on television, except for going the Sri Lanka way. In the Emerald Isle, where alcohol advertising is banned, cable networks are monitored for ads which are blipped out the minute they appear on screen.

But in India, he says, alcohol is a state subject: "If you don't have even a Central excise tax how can you have a Government of India law on advertising related to liquor?"

In fact, even before the Broadcasting Act is in place (Swaraj has set a time frame of three months) internationalnetworks appear ready to proffer the plea that India cannot frame a law for places where it has no jurisdiction. For instance, Star TV, one of the major offenders, beams to 53 countries out of Hong Kong. When uplinking is made mandatory under the Act, India cannot prevent these ads being aired to the non-Indian market.

Industry estimates peg Star TV's alcohol ad revenue for 1997-98 at Rs 15 crore (they air alcohol ads even during the news). National Media Director of Contract, Sushil Pandit, who handles Brown and Forman's advertising, fears this will lead to a situation where liquor advertising will continue but foreign majors will just shift advertising budgets out of India. As of now, about 80 per cent of foreign brands advertise out of India. Companies such as Seagram's have TV ad spends of over Rs 5 crore every year. Alcohol advertising, especially related to sports, has become big business ever since foreign companies entered India in 1994. Though the industry was expected to generate Rs 1,000 crore inadvertising, the market has not been able to sustain it. The bottomline though may be that the Government can only appeal to the networks' conscience. As Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi says: "How can the Government stop this advertising?" In any case, he says, "it's better than cigarettes". Clearly, Swaraj does not agree.