Using the hashtag #LahuKaLagaan, celebrities are asking for tax exemption on women's sanitary products
In an Internet movement spearheaded by an NGO called She Says, netizens are writing to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and asking him to abolish the tax on women's sanitary products. The idea behind the campaign is to get the minister to exempt sanitary napkins from the Goods and Services Tax system, given that menstruation is a natural process and these products are a necessity, not a luxury. Using the hashtag #LahuKaLagaan, She Says points out in its campaign that tax-free sanitary napkins are essential as most Indian women still don't use sanitary napkins - 80% cannot afford them while 19% lack information, and 2% don't have access to them.
A number of comedians and netizens took up the cause immediately and started tweeting Mr Jaitley to stop #LahuKaLagaan, which roughly translates to tax on bleeding
Cyrus Broacha was one of the first to take up the cause
Mallika Dua explains it in plain speak:
Rohan Joshi also lent his support to the cause
As did Kaneez Surka and Kanan Gill
Comedy collective Girliyapa used some humour to get the point across
Anu Menon and Atul Khatri explain in their videos
Soon, Bollywood also started tweeting to Mr Jaitley
The Lahu Ka Lagaan campaign comes just days after Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi wrote to Mr Jaitley, asking him provide 100 per cent tax exemption for eco-friendly and bio-degradable sanitary napkins under GST, according to PTI reports.
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