Indians debate smoke-free films

India’s health minister has reignited the debate about smoking, saying actors should stop puffing away on screen -- a call one of the country’s biggest stars criticized as censorship.

Even as an increasing number of countries clamp down on smoking, people in India freely puff away in playgrounds, sidewalk cafes and even hospitals, a situation that Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has long sought to change.

“We have statistics which show that 52% of children have their first puff because of movie celebrities,” Ramadoss told CNN-IBN news channel. He cited two of the country’s biggest male stars: Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan.

Khan was having none of it Monday. “I think there is a huge amount of creative freedom that should be allowed in cinema and the arts,” he told the news channel. Smoking in the movies is “make believe . . . we must not have too much censorship on that.”