23 September 2006

Sabse bada rupaiya

In his latest Coke ad, Aamir Khan assures you that the drink is absolutely safe, etc.

Just tell me one thing: if the cola giants are so virgin-white, what's stoppin them from taking CSE to the court? There's something called the defamation suit, you know.

One guess: perhaps they learnt something from the McLibel trial.

The McLibel Trial is the infamous British court case between McDonald's and a former postman & a gardener from London (Helen Steel and Dave Morris). It ran for two and a half years and became the longest ever English trial. The defendants were denied legal aid and their right to a jury, so the whole trial was heard by a single Judge, Mr Justice Bell. He delivered his devastating verdict in June 1997.

But, whatever happened to the citizen Aamir?


6 comments:

Kaunquest said...

true..ye paisa bolta hai! :)

Vijayalaxmi Hegde said...

bahut kuch bolta hai.

Welcome Kaunquest :)

Anonymous said...

Great citation, vij. Meanwhile I think the Kerala Governemnt's legal defence team was plain incompetent or sold out. But I hear theyre going to appeal the ruling - the least! Would really like to know why this case moved so fast, or do corporate cases usually do.
Finny

Slogan Murugan said...

Well, he gets paid for it. He better act or he will be sued.

Vijayalaxmi Hegde said...

Finny: If you haven't already, please please please read No Logo. It's critical to your existence as a consumer.. and also i think to your existence as a third-world citizen, and as a woman, too, perhaps. Yeah, I have said much.

Abt the oh-so-active court, I paste below text from CSE's newsletter:
"The Kerala High Court has set aside the ban purely on technical grounds, that is that under the current law, only the Central government is empowered to ban any food product. CSE, however, pointed out that the problem is that the Central government has not set up the regulations, which would ensure that these drinks are safe."

There's more, of course.

And Gopalms, have you made your profile inaccessible?! Why, pray?

Slogan Murugan said...

Gopal M S aka sloganmurugan here. I don't rememeber how that happened. Must have signed in using gopalms by mistake! An account I don't use.