World No Tobacco Day: Govt bans tobacco promotion on OTT; notifies rules

The Union Health Ministry on Wednesday notified new rules called the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply, and Distribution) Amendment Rules, 2023 to regulate anti-tobacco warnings on over-the-top (OTT) platforms. According to the notification, the OTT Platforms will have to carry anti-tobacco warning messages at the beginning as well as in the middle of the programme.

The notification mandates that every publisher of online content displaying tobacco products on their use shall “display anti-tobacco health warnings, of minimum thirty seconds duration each at the beginning and middle of the programme.”