Noting that advertisements of junk foods did not carry nutritional awareness, she said she was in favour of a ban on advertisements promoting such products.

Earlier this week, she had told reporters in an informal chat that, "They (private enterprises) have a social commitment. They have to include (nutritional awareness)." She had said junk food companies have to possess social commitment "and they better deliver on those or I will ban them. I am quite capable of that."

Chowdhury, who earlier announced that India is hosting a three-day International Conference from 8 October 2007 in New Delhi, to discuss child adoption issues, said she was planning to hold a separate meet to sensitize the media to such issues. The international conference is being organized by Central Adoption Resource Authority (Cara), an automonous unit under her Ministry.

She also said she had written to the information and broadcasting ministry to follow up on the recommendations made by her ministry in the report earlier this year on child abuse. Apart from urging the I&B ministry to draw up a Code for the media which reported on subjects relating to children, the report had also strongly reprimanded television channels for the manner in which they interviewed child victims.

She thanked the media for highlighting cases of child abuse like the recent case of a child being forced to strip, as this helped the government in taking action in appropriate cases.