The Hindu Business Line : Goutam Rakshit is new Chairman of ASCI

AT its first meeting of the newly elected Board of Governors of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) for 2004-05, Mr Goutam Rakshit, Managing Director, Advertising Avenues, was elected Chairman of the Board.

Outgoing Chairman, Mr N. Murali, Joint Managing Director, The Hindu, stated that with Mr Rakshit at the helm, the further strengthening of ASCI as the self-regulatory body of the ad industry was assured.

Mr Rakshit had earlier been Chairman of several major industry associations. Mr Ashoke Bijapurkar, Managing Director, F.S.A.S Ltd, was elected Vice-Chairman and Mr Arun Adhikari, Managing Director (HPC), Hindustan Lever Ltd, has been appointed the Honorary Treasurer.

The other members are: Advertiser: Mr Ravi Kant (Tata Motors), Mr Bharat Patel (P&G) and Mr Bharat Puri (Cadbury); Media: Mr C.R. Irani (The Statesman), Mr Bharat Kapadia (Chitralekha), Mr G. Krishnan (TV Today) and Mr N. Murali (Kasturi & Sons); Agency: Mr Sam Balsara (Madison), Mr Madhukar Kamath (Mudra) and Mr Ram Sehgal (Everest); and Allied Professions: Ms Urmila Jain (Aaren), Mr Dhananjay Keskar (ICFAI) and Mr R.A. Poddar (Tobacco Institute).

During 2003-04, the Consumer Complaints Council of the ASCI upheld 67 per cent of the complaints received and over 80 per cent of ASCI's rulings were complied with by the ad industry.

ASCI's media campaign for raising awareness among the general public of its role in ensuring truth in Indian advertising and adherence to social norms has gained widespread support from media.

ASCI has created a web site: www.asci.co.in, which invites the public to write to the body on any advertisements that they consider improper and which they would like ASCI to review.

Mr Rakshit stated that the focus of the year would be to get every advertising industry body such as the AAAI, INS, ISA and IBF to become even more actively involved with the vital issue of self regulation of advertising so that Indian advertising continues to set standards for the rest of the world.