Mandloi said though TV production had become cheaper, more money was being spent on advertisements than ever before. Furthermore, advertisers were using children as models since they knew this was the only way a child could be induced to persuade his or her parents to spend money on a particular product.

Research had shown clear linkages between increase sexual crimes and violence and television programme, he said, relating the instances of children who had admitted to the influence of programmes on TV for some of their acts.

Ruchi Kashyap said she had generally touched on three effects of TV advertising: tobacco addiction, alcoholism, and obesity. She said that a child on an average sees around 75,000 ads of alcohol by the time he or she is sixteen, and 90 per cent of the people who are habitual smokers admit to adopting this habit in childhood. Junk food was the biggest cause of obesity, which in turn led to health problems.

Publications Division joint director and Editor of Yojana Anurag Mishra said that advertisers were conscious that it was easy to manipulate the innocent mind of a child.