Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya said the Union government should ban pubs across the country, which, he said, were ruining the lives of young people. Said Dattatreya to THE WEEK, “Last month, I had requested the governments in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to ban pubs in these states as many young people from affluent communities were becoming obsessed with it. But this is a pan-India phenomenon. The pub culture is spoiling the good values that are inculcated in young people. There is a need to increase moral standards and bring in changes in educational policies that will promote ethical values.”
Dattatreya said many young people in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad were becoming addicted to pubs and western culture. He said internet games like Blue Whale are getting popular because young people are blindly aping the western culture.
“The youth should be channelised in the right direction. Any infatuation towards anything is bad, be it video games or pubs. Over-westernisation is a disturbing phenomenon and has now become a menace to Indian society. Our youngsters should be morally and ethically right and they should not let the world laugh at them,” said Dattatreya.
Dattatreya said that it was the responsibility of the state and Central governments to create awareness on drug abuse among school and college students. “In many states, very little is happening at the ground level. These problems continue to haunt us, unfortunately,” he said.
