Musical campaign launched in city to promote tobacco-free healthy life

Varanasi: On World No Tobacco Day, the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) and Bollywood’s music composer duo Salim-Sulaiman launched a campaign, ‘Aaj Zindagi Jeete Hain’, to engage youth and promote a healthy lifestyle free of tobacco.
The campaign was launched at the national level and the music video was released at an event at Tata Memorial Centre in Varanasi on Wednesday. Actor Arjun Tanwar featured in the video as narrator while the song has been written by the celebrated lyricist Irfan Siddiqui.
While launching the campaign, director of Mahamana Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya Cancer Centre and Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital (MPMMCC/HBCH), Varanasi, Dr Satyajit Pradhan said that according to Global Youth Tobacco Survey-4, around 38% of cigarettes, 47% of bidi smokers and 52% of smokeless tobacco users in India started consuming tobacco before their 10th birthday.
“Studies have proved that both smoking and smokeless tobacco use is linked with cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Our centre gets thousands of patients affected by tobacco-related cancers,” said the director, adding that tobacco destroys both lives and livelihoods.
“This campaign is important as we all need to make collective efforts to fight tobacco. Every year, on May 31, World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is celebrated to raise awareness about harmful impact of tobacco use, second-hand smoke exposure and to discourage use of tobacco in any form. Today’s event here at the TMC reinforces our commitment with the help of the state and the district level departments to protect people from tobacco use,” he said. The department of Preventive Oncology and Cancer Registry, MPMMCC sensitised more than 2,000 school students and 400 ASHA workers on tobacco-related harms and early signs and symptoms of oral cancer in the Varanasi district
The patron of the Tata Memorial Centre, Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi said, “Tobacco use is a leading preventable killer in the world, and in India, it is responsible for around 1 million deaths annually. We believe new initiatives such as ‘Aaj Zindagi Jeete Hai’ have the potential to engage audiences, especially our youngsters. This multi-stakeholder initiative will converge the efforts of various government agencies and organisations under the #India vs Tobacco umbrella campaign. We express our deepest appreciation towards Salim-Sulaiman and their team for their efforts to use a varied medium of communication for tobacco control efforts.”
This campaign was developed with the technical support of global health organisation, Vital Strategies, under a partnership with the WebRangers Entertainment, a prominent digital marketing and entertainment company.
Sharing his views, Bollywood music composer, Salim Merchant said, “We fully support the India vs Tobacco campaign which is a step towards spreading public awareness around the harmful effects of tobacco consumption in India. We have always believed that music has the power to change the world. We are humbled to be part of a campaign that will engage youth in a meaningful way towards choosing a healthy lifestyle free from tobacco use. Every death from tobacco is preventable and our entertainment industry has the potential to be a part of this change.”