HoT Indian Girls

Back in 1998, when Bipasha Basu was still a model and Dino Morea used to be her boyfriend, the two got cozy for an ad for Swiss underwear brand Calida. The image of Dino tugging Bipasha's panty with his teeth was too hot to handle for the then Minister of State for Cultural Affairs, Anil Deshmukh. The caption accompanying the saucy pictures read, "And you thought your appetite for indulgence could only be whetted by Swiss chocolates".

An ad for VIP Frenchie X underwear showing a girl entering a room to find a young man in his underwear was also deemed obscene.

The complaint registered with the ASCI reads, "Visuals of 'a woman sensually and orally enjoying the flavours of fruits.' are obscene and vulgar"

In the ad a man takes a sip of his drink and looks at an attractive woman on the other side of the room, and her neckline gets lower and diminishes with every sip.



As he sips for the kill, he finds his shirt open. The woman is also playing the same game. The tagline says, Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai (Anything is possible). The TVC was subsequently taken off air.

Malaika Arora had met future husband Arbaaz Khan while both were shooting for an ad for MR Coffee. The ad, due to its sexual overtones, generated quite a controversy. Even Amul came up with a parody ad around it.

There exist stringent directives for advertisers to keep in mind before they release an ad for public consumption.

The Programme Code prescribed under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995, prohibits "carriage of programmes in cable service, which offend good taste or decency; contain anything vulgar/obscene and are not suitable for unrestricted public exhibition."

The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), a self-regulatory voluntary organisation of the advertising industry, also has a code in place that asks advertisers "To ensure that advertisements are not offensive to generally accepted standards of public decency. Advertisements should contain nothing indecent, vulgar or repulsive which is likely, in the light of generally prevailing standards of decency and propriety, to cause grave or widespread offence."

In more liberal societies, advertisers have it a little easier, but glancing through the history of Indian advertising it is obvious that Indian advertisers do not shy away from adding some oomph to their copies.

Though government orders can put such "offending" ads off-air, they remain a big hit on the Internet. And banning them only adds to their aura on the relatively unregulated Wild Wild Web.