Bad news: India bans smoking in public places. The legislation represents the world’s biggest smoking ban and the nation’s 120 million smokers could be landed with a 200 rupee fine (about $5 USD) if they fail to comply with the law.
Although India already had anti-smoking laws forbidding smoking in college campuses, bars and discos since 2003, these were widely ignored.
The latest legislation seeks to strengthen the rules and extend them so that smokers can only light up in their own homes, in parks or on the roadside, and the government is hopeful that its citizens will be sufficiently deterred by the threat of a fine.
