To,
Mind-Spark Team,
College of Engineering, Pune.
Friends its a very sensitive issue that we are going to discuss here. We all know a soft drink company called Red Bull sponsors our Grand Event Robotics. No doubt its true that to make any event successful Money matters. But being conscious students it becomes our prime responsibility to know from whom we are taking money and why such company is sponsoring us.
First of all we would like to emphasis your attention towards contents of Red Bull as we should know what we are drinking.
The company itself says that it contains caffeine which is an Addictive gives us addiction of this drink. It is the content which make up to stick to this drink throughout the whole life. Caffeine is cousin of Cocaine causes Insomnia, depression, fatigue, irritation, nervousness, headache, poor concentration. One can of Red Bull contains 80mg of caffeine - equivalent to one cup of coffee. A study by the French Scientific Committee on Human Nutrition found that Red Bull contained excessive caffeine. It also raised concerns about the its other ingredients - Taurine, an amino acid which is also very harmful to our body. Britain's Committee on Toxicity investigated Red Bull in 2001 and warned pregnant women against it because high caffeine intake has been linked to a risk of miscarriage.
Red Bull is banned in-
*France
*Denmark
*Norway
Intension of such companies behind giving huge sponsorship and giving it free of cost is to make more and more young students its addict. Due to such hazardous contents that we discussed above makes a person addictive for lifetime. If a person becomes addictive then these companies don't have to bother about advertisement which booms their profit because ultimately that person going to buy it.
So being responsible students it become very important to understand moto of these companies behind sponsorships and prevent our students from consuming it rather than nakedly pandering for their money.
Its not only about Red Bull but all other soft drink companies does the same. Soft drinks like Pepsi, Coke, Thumps Up etc also contains caffeine, acids like glucanic acid, phosphoric acid and acetic acid causing disturbance in digestive system. Center for science and environment has found pesticide contents in 7 samples out of 12 samples of soft drinks made in India including pepsi, coca-cola, 7up, Mirinda and others.
Problems is not only of what they are adding to it, but the most disastrous thing is that these companies are exploiting huge amount of groundwater for production of drinks resulting depletion in groundwater level in that region eg, plachimada(kerala), thane district(maharashtra), rajasthan, UP.
Note: There are 90 bottling plants in India and each plant exploit 10-12 lack litres of water per day.
For the production of 10 litre of soft drink 100 litres of water is exploited causing huge water waste and soil and water pollution because industrial waste is carelessly dumped on ground or in river making soil infertile and water unfit for drinking. It means if we are drinking a single bottle of soft drink then we wasting 10 bottles of drinking water which can be used by the poor people who don't get clean water to drink though it is public property.
So soft drinks are not only waste of water but by doing this we are also making our society more and more weaker.
Soft drinks also contain a huge amount of Corn Fructose which is very dangerous to our health gives us diabetes in very small age also leads to obesity.
It also contains Ethylene Glycol an antifreeze as it should not freeze at low temperature which is itself acts as an Carcinogen (Cancer causing agent.)
The law says- 'contents should be written with their proportion' on bottle or packet of every food material, but did you see any soft drink bottle with its contents written over it?? No.... you didn't. So the point is they also don't care of this law also and no action is taken in this so called largest democratic country like India. :(
To boom sales of such soft drinks these companies hires our Heroes (actors and players) whom we consider Youth Icon of our country but what the hell they have to do with youth of this country as they are making this youth more and more addictive towards such dirty drinks and giving them a lots of health problems. All these youth icons are also nakedly pandering for money.
Being progressive students of 21st century we should not become victims of such dirty consumerism and should save others also. Our first step towards this should be strictly refuse to buy any such drinks which is harmful to our society after doing this we should demand 'Total Boycott' of all such drinks from our college campus.
There are many universities and colleges in India only where such drinks are banned eg. Anna University, Gujarat University, Coimbatore University etc. But the sorry thing we only copy their syllabus and curriculum but don't such things having the same importance.
So, in Pune lets start from 'Us'. So, we must show these companies that these companies can't do their business at least in our COEP.
So, after knowing so much fact we should think twice before asking them for sponsorships and should refuse if they approach us by themselves. We hope for the sake of Humanity You all will definitely gonna think about it.
Thank you.
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