J&K first in country to declare all election booths as No Smoking Zones

Excelsior Correspondent
Jammu, Mar 25: Umang Narula, Chief Electoral Officer Jammu and Kashmir has directed that all election booths in J&K will be No Smoking Zones.
Instructions in this regard have been issued to all Returning Officers and District Election Officers of the State.  The directions were given on the representation made by A.M.Mir, Executive Director J&K Voluntary Health Association, requesting the Chief Electoral Officer to declare all election booths as No-Smoking Zones in accordance with Section-4 of Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 2003, which prohibits smoking at all public places.
Jammu and Kashmir is the first State in the country to declare all election booths as No Smoking Zones and it will now be mandatory for all election booths to display the warning “No Smoking Area- Smoking here is an offence”.
Meanwhile, Mr Narula chaired a meeting of the State Level Media Monitoring and Certification Committee (MCMC), here today.
Director Information Tasaduq Jeelani, Additional DG (M&C), Press Information Bureau, Obaidur Rahman, Assistant Director, News, Doordarshan Sanjit Khajuria, Journalist S.P. Sharma and Dy. CEO Rashpal Singh attended the meeting.
The committee held exhaustive discussions on all issues relating to certification of advertisement on television channel and cable network by registered political parties having headquarters in the State and organizations or group of persons or associations having registered offices in the state.
The state MCMC also discussed matters pertaining to paid news and cases received from the respective Returning Officers.
The MCMC has been established at various levels; at the district level the MCMC would monitor all cases of paid news at district level. The RO will also be giving the certification of advertisement for individual contesting candidates before these are inserted in the electronic media.
The State level MCMC will decide on appeals from both district and Addl/Jt. CEO committees on certification of advertisement and examine all cases of paid news on appeal against the decision of District MCMC or cases that may take up suo motu, in which case it shall direct the concerned ROs to issue notices to the candidates.
Later, the committee also attended a video conference organized by the Election Commission of India with regard to pre-certification and paid news.

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