COMMENTATOR (COMM.): Previously on Life . . .

PETER MARCUSE: The world is rich enough to provide decent health care for everyone on the planet.

SHEELA PATEL: Health for All should be the choice of the people. Health needs to be their goal, their target.

SASKIA SASSEN: The urban glamour zone can be consumed as an experience. The defining mark is the ascendancy of design.

COMM: India is being swept along in the tide of globalisation. New communications technologies have fuelled an explosion of business opportunities. While over half of the population still lives on less than a dollar a day, India also has the fastest growing middle class in the world. The population has just passed the one billion mark. Half of all Indians are under 25.

All industries are trying to capitalise on this youthful market - none more so than the tobacco industry. At a time of dwindling sales and expensive lawsuits in the West, the tobacco companies are looking to developing country markets for compensation. There is a growing awareness of the health hazards, but tobacco consumption in India is rising steadily. Cultural traditions mean that Indian women have never really smoked - but that too is changing. An estimated four million children under 15 are believed to be regular tobacco users.

DR SHARAD VAIDYA (Cancer Surgeon): Five and a half thousand children are estimated to start smoking every day in India.

SUHEL SETH (Former Marketing Manager, India Tobacco Corporation): Volumes are up. Volumes are up.

DR VAIDYA: Two and a half thousand die every day, because of tobacco related diseases, and twice the number have to smoke, and keep smoking to keep the industry alive and kicking.

SUHEL SETH: If you offer a market like a sitting duck to a multinational corporation, it's going to bleed the market.

COMM: Tobacco giants like Philip Morris and British American Tobacco have designed marketing strategies specifically geared towards increasing sales of cigarettes in the developing world. BAT have called theirs, "Project Battalion", advertising is key to these strategies.

PRAHLAD KAKKAR (Commercials Director): Regardless of what they say about brand building, which is possibly true, the fact is that it has a double agenda.

COMM: Tobacco companies have always maintained that they aren't trying to attract new smokers, but merely 'brand-building' - convincing existing smokers to switch brands.

PRAHLAD KAKKAR: If you make your cigarette smoking advertising classy enough - aspirational enough - then you will always attract new smokers.

COMM: The Indian cigarette industry is dominated by one company - ITC - which has a seventy per cent share of the market. The multinational, British America Tobacco, is the largest shareholder in ITC.

SUHEL SETH: To give you the complete lowdown: BAT controls ICT.

COMM: Suhel Seth was formerly the marketing manager of ITC. Now he's one of India's new marketing gurus - and has set up his own company, "Brand Dot Com".

SUHEL SETH: Advertising, especially in a market such as India, works because for about 48 years out of our 53 odd years of independence we were an insular market in media terms. You know, you were very insular, you had state controlled television, you didn't have cable and satellite, you had fewer newspapers; your literacy was far lower than it is today. With that changing, what you've obviously seen is also the evolution of the Indian consumer.

COMM: Roadside kiosks are the main retail outlets for tobacco in India. There are kiosks on every corner of every street in every town. Over two hundred and fifty million Indians use tobacco on a daily basis. The most popular product is the locally produced hand-rolled "bidi". Also common is "gutkha" a highly flavoured chewing tobacco.

COMM: The tobacco industry in India is worth over five billion US dollars annually. World Health Organisation figures show that one Indian dies every forty seconds as a result of tobacco-related illnesses.

MANOJ THAKER (Translation): Hello everybody, my name is Manoj Thaker, I am a cancer survivor.

COMM: Manoj smoked cigarettes and chewed gutkha his whole adult life.

MANOJ THAKER: They cut out half my jaw. Upper and lower jaw is not there anymore -and what you see here is skin grafted from my chest for the plastic surgery. And this is a plastic insert that supports my neck and head.

COMM: Manoj sees himself as a living advertisement for the perils of tobacco use. His aim - to shock people into giving up.

MANOJ THAKER (Translation): I trying to get married - I am divorced. No-one wants to let their daughter marry me. It's true! Do you know anyone who would marry me? No jokes.

COMM: Since his operation, he's started a book listing the names and numbers of all the smokers and chewers in Bombay who've promised him they would kick the habit.

MANOJ THAKER: I have found this many people - these are their names and telephone numbers. Today's total is three hundred and fifty one - that's how many people have quit smoking.

COMM: He follows up every encounter with a phone call - he thinks about eighty per cent of his converts are keeping off tobacco.

MANOJ THAKER: Before the cancer, I was working as a marketing manager, making a salary of nearly nine thousand rupees, plus perks. Today, even a teenager wouldn't give me a job. I don't know anything else apart from that - I started my career in selling, so part from my selling skills, I don't know anything else. All I can do is sell. With my face like this, no-one will give me a job. This is an old picture of me.

COMM: The year Manoj Thaker discovered he had cancer was also the year his wife and daughter left him. Now he lives alone in a northern suburb of Bombay. Unable to find a job, he runs his own small kiosk. The money it brings in barely covers his living expenses, and his hospital bills have been colossal. But he still refuses to sell tobacco products - despite the lucrative profits they could bring him. Instead, he regards his kiosk as the perfect opportunity to sell people the dangers of tobacco.

MANOJ THAKER : Yes, sir.

MAN ON BIKE (Translation): Have you got any cigarettes?

MANOJ THAKER: No tobacco, no cigarettes, no gutkha.

MAN ON BIKE: Yes, that is you.

MANOJ THAKER: I was quite handsome, wasn't I?

MAN ON BIKE: Yes.

MANOJ THAKER: Now look at what a monster I look like.

MAN ON BIKE: You had an operation for cancer here?

MANOJ THAKER: Yes, they cut out the whole area. People are surprised because they see such a nice shop, chewing gums, chocolates, biscuits. And cigarettes are such a popular item. They ask me, "Why don't you stock them?" that's when I explain to them, "Look friend, smoking cigarettes are a bad thing." Look, today I have a modest business; I have to be careful about my spending. But, for my piece of mind, I cannot sell poison to the public.

TV COMMERCIAL: Hero productions present Mahalaayak!

PRAHLAD KAKKAR (Commercials Director): You know - the cigarette ads that we made, they were all spoofed and they were very funny. Er, so, you know - we'll try and get you a copy of it - it was a spoof on an Indian movie. And it was very good fun. Funnily, it became very popular. We shot it like a trailer of an Indian movie. Most of the films are given to producers who actually are comfortable with certain things. So, I'm very comfortable with kids, I am very comfortable with teenagers and very comfortable with good-looking women, because - you know, that's the way I am.

You see cigarette advertising, you see a hoarding with some guy looking really great, you feel the need - you suddenly feel the nicotine need, because you see somebody else smoking, you see a hoarding, you see a commercial. So it's like kick-starting a body, it's like reminding it that you got cold turkey, man, you need a smoke [coughs].

TV COMMERCIAL: The Wills International Cup. Share the magic!

PRAHLAD KAKKAR: Most of the time - the work that I've done for tobacco companies, strangely enough, is on cricket. So it's not actually about smoking - it's about team sponsorship. So most of my involvement then was actually subliminal.

TV COMMERCIAL: Four Square Cricket Gear - you never know what you could become.

SUHEL SETH: Cricket is the only common religion that India has. On the face of it what you see is a sponsorship of sport, but if you scratch the surface, then what you see is very, very careful target marketing where they're looking at young people who watch the sport, who are almost fanatic about it see their icons being associated with a cigarette brand.

TV COMMERCIAL: . . . Sensational bat - darling of the crowds -demolition man. Four Square cricket gear. You never know what you could become.

PRAHLAD KAKKAR: All cigarette advertising is eventually aspirational and it definitely gets to smokers because anything that's aspirational and lifestyle oriented and action oriented - and if you're more macho or you get the women, or you get the, get the job done, or you're, you're a hero at the end of it - then it is aspirational: it makes a huge impact on people who don't smoke especially kids.

STREET KID (TRANSLATION): It's like this - we wake up in the morning and feel the need for a bidi or a cigarette. We go to the station and find cigarettes dropped on the street, and we smoke. We then have a chat with our friends and do and drink some dalashan and play cards.

2nd STREET KID (TRANSLATION): When I came from my village to Bombay, that's when my friends taught me how to smoke, that's how I first started. And I'll continue to do it for the rest of my life. That's it.

3rd STREET KID (TRANSLATION): I came to Bombay to become a film star here, to find a job and try to become a big, respected man.

2nd STREET KID (TRANSLATION): We have dreams to become heroes.

4th STREET KID (TRANSLATION): It's like, you know, you wake up and then during the day you get dizzy spells, so you feel like smoking. When you have a cigarette, it brings you peace of mind. That's when you can start to think about how you will earn your money today. How will I do it? Will I beg, or will I steal?

COMM: Goa, on the West coast of India - the gateway through which Portuguese colonisers first brought tobacco to India in the seventeenth century. Goa is also home to one of India's most vociferous anti-tobacco campaigners - Dr Vaidya, a local cancer surgeon, who became so frustrated at the number of preventable tumours he was operating on, he began an anti-tobacco campaign.

DR SHARAD VAIDYA (Cancer Surgeon): I think Goa should be the place from where tobacco should get out of India, and that way, I thought, Goa can have a place of pride in eradicating tobacco.

COMM: Dr.Vaidya also understands the importance of capturing the hearts and minds of the young.

DR VAIDYA: I started going to the schools and talking to the children. I said, if we are at all going to fight tobacco it has to be from childhood because that's where the habits actually get ingrained in the mind, get ingrained in society, get ingrained in the body, and you are a life-time tobacco addict.

COMM: In 1998, he and the schoolchildren of Goa took to the streets in protest. Their aim: to force the state government to legislate against tobacco and tobacco advertising.

DR VAIDYA: I think that we have a misconception that-that adults have to teach children. I think adults have to learn a lot from children. But child of ten cannot visualise what may happen to him at the age of fifty or sixty.

DR MOORTHY: My father has been smoking for a considerable of time now, and in August it began with this hoarseness of voice and this basically progressed and worsened. And he had a number of investigations and was diagnosed to have a cancer of his voice box, or what's called the larynx. He underwent a course of radiotherapy in the months of October, November and December and initially he responded. But then gradually the condition deteriorated and was manifested itself in hoarseness of the voice, he had severe pain while swallowing because of which he couldn't eat, and he lost some eleven kgs over eight weeks. And he was diagnosed to have complete destruction of his voice box, most likely as a result of his cancer having come back. And he underwent about a week ago, which consisted of the complete removal of his voice box, and he's had now what's called a tracheotomy which is an opening, an airway, in his neck and he needs to be fed through this tube.

COMM: Colonel Moorthi is just one of the millions of cancer victims in India. His cancer is a direct result of smoking. But unlike other countries with high rates of tobacco-related illness, India also has high numbers of oral cancer patients - a direct result of the deadly gutkha. Many Indians have learned too late just how dangerous tobacco can be.

INTERVIEWER: What would you like to say to the tobacco companies?

HANSRAJ YADAV (TRANSLATION): There is no point me saying anything because the government gives them licenses to do business. No one is going to listen to what I say. Nothing is going to happen if I tell them to stop.

DR VAIDYA: I think they are impervious, I wouldn't waste my one word on them. They're impervious to the tragedy - they know that tragedy occurs. Money drives them, and greed drives them to do what they're doing.

SUHEL SETH (Former Marketing Manager, ITC): You cannot ever blame an ITC for cigarette consumption going up - I mean, it's ridiculous because if you look at it as a company then it's only doing the job it's meant to do, which is to maximise shareholder profit. You've got to have governmental pressure, you've got to have government or some body like that, actually inflicting pressure on these guys - otherwise it'll never work.

COMM: Under pressure from Dr Vaidya's campaign, the Goan state government banned all tobacco advertising. Tobacco companies now cannot advertise on television, in the cinema, on billboards - or even on shop premises.

POLICEMAN: He has been told not to allow anyone in future to paste these posters.

COMM: But the state government didn't just ban advertising - it went even further, and banned smoking itself in public places. Dr. Vaidya makes sure local cafe owners know about the ban on smoking in public.

DR VAIDYA: Your health - those who are serving coffee - are the ones that suffer most because of the smoking of your customers. Can you have a urinating container in a swimming pool?

CAFÉ OWNER: No, no, no.

DR VAIDYA: The freedom to smoke is lost as soon as you are addicted - after the first six or seven cigarettes you lose the freedom, you become addicted - there is no freedom. Freedom is a concept infused into the tobacco promotion. It's not freedom. To be free from addiction is freedom. Once you are addicted you can't think properly. You have to concentrate your thoughts on the next smoke.

COMM: As a result of the Goa campaign, tobacco consumption has gone down significantly - a trend supported by the experiences of other countries, which show similar reductions where tobacco advertising has been banned. Dr. Vaidya's next ambition is to spread the message to the rest of India.

PRAHLAD KAKKAR: Sometimes the scripts are so much fun that I'm just dying to execute them - as a film person. But when you look at it in that respect, you think, shit, I shouldn't be doing this.

TV COMMERCIAL ("Gold Flake" Tobacco Advert): This is the world that's always smooth, always mellow.

PRAHLAD KAKKAR: But if they're going to send me to the moon to do a commercial from there to see what the earth looks like after it's smoked itself out - possibly!

TV COMMERCIAL: The world of Gold Flake: always smooth, always mellow.

SUHEL SETH: You see - the point is there's no Mother Teresa in the tobacco business. Who, who are the conscience keepers in the United States? Who are conscience keepers in the UK? Government. You had regulatory bodies. You had regulators. You had controls. And you had people who are willing to take charge. You had champions. You had cause heroes. We don't have any of that here.

COMM: Back in Bombay, Manoj is getting ready for another day's hard sell.

INTERVIEWER: Who's that?

MANOJ: She's my daughter.

INTERVIEWER: How often do you see her, Manoj?

MANOJ: Once a month, once a month.

INTERVIEWER: Does she come to see you?

MANOJ: No, I go and see her.

INTERVIEWER: How does she react to your cancer?

MANOJ: She says, "Papa, your face is very dirty. Earlier, your face was very beautiful. I don't like to see your face." And that is true.

INTERVIEWER: Manoj, what do you miss most from your previous life?

MANOJ: My family life. And my job, too.

MANOJ (Translation): Who are you taking those cigarettes for?

BOY (TRANSLATION): For the boss!

MANOJ (TRANSLATION): Look, this is what happens when you smoke cigarettes - understand kid? So don't smoke - I'll box your ears if I find out. Now off you go!

Now, hang on a minute - you can take five minutes out, can't you? I'll change your life.

COMM: Soon after we completed the shooting of this film, Manoj was told that his cancer had returned - this time on the other side of his face.

COMM: By the year 2030 forecasters predict that tobacco will be the biggest single cause of death on the planet. To help combat this trend, the World Health Organization is calling for a global ban on tobacco advertising.

END