India reBuild - bring healthy food and beverages back

Junk food and soft drinks are rapidly reaching the same level of perception globally, as primary reasons for obesity and ill-health, as tobacco had achieved with lung cancer and worse about two decades ago. Ofcourse, thanks to the realities of misgovernance and easily bought out administrations in India, given to waffling along mostly with anything but the public and social interest in mind, this has yet to find the kind of support from the authorities in India that this subject finds in other countries.
Take, for example, the way the word "chocolate" and similar sounding expressions are blatantly misused by candy manufacturers - who think nothing of using vanaspati type hydro-genated oils with added brown colour and sugar, as "choco____". A simple rule that if it is not chocolate and/or cocoa as defined, then half the packaging as well as all publicity and marketing material in all media, including online, should say in bold letters that "THIS IS NOT CHOCOLATE", could go a long distance to solve the problem. But no, we are going to be provided with international brands whch will fool everybody, including using the thespian/actor with the deep baritone, into telling us that this junk food is chocolate.
Still, there is hope, there are certainly exceptions to the mess that we are in, there are good people at various levels who are delivering, and on the basis of a Public Interest Litigation filed in the Delhi High Court a few years ago, some progress appears to have been made in the recent past in at least bringing matters to the fore. Rescuing my generation from the ill effects thanks to the aspirational overtones given to junk food may not be possible, given the deep pockets and long reach that the death merchants flogging what has been described by the Indian Government as junk food have, but atleast we have hope for the future, and to start with, some sort of a description.
From an affidavit submitted by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, on behalf of the Union of India, we learn that in India "any food which has poor nutritional value is considered unhealthy and may be called a junk food". The affidavit then states further that junk food is "food that is high in fat, sugar or sodium", "easy to carry, purchase and consume", "is given a very attractive appearance by adding food additives and colour to enhance flavour texture, apearance and increasing shelf life", "is high in empty calories", and "is high in fats and sugar and responsible for obesity, dental cavities, diabetes and heart disease".
Can you spot half a dozen, or more, purveyors of junk food near you? Mostly with fancy international brand names. Can't miss them lately, and almost al trying to make you and me addicts too.
Full details of the PIL and its present status can be found here:-
http://www.udayfoundationindia.org/petition-in-delhi-high-court-to-ban-junk-food-and-carbonated-drinks-in-schools/
http://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhc_case_status_oj_list.asp?pno=564215
But what is the larger issue here? Most certainly junk food and soft drinks are not going to provide a Nation with healthy people, if present trends continue, especially as the Multi National Corporations rapidly losing ground and often being treated like pariahs in their home countries, continue to try to make addicts of more and more Indians - who they consider a market just like their opium peddling predecessors considered China to be.
Likewise, we appear to be in danger of losing ground in many parts of India, where traditional cooking skillsets which have provided healthy food at low cost for generations are rapidly giving way to an assembly line type of trader business, churning out tonnes of junk food mostly made out of refined white flour (maida), sugar, salt and colour as well as flavour and essence, served with huge helpings of coloured sugary carbonated water which also has salt in it.
Do you really think that these soft drinks are going to quench your thirst?
All this, ofcourse, backed by a huge marketing and sales machine which is run by people who have a simple single focus - sell more and more, ill effects be damned. Because otherwise, simply, they will lose their jobs.
But, and this is a question that needs to be answered not as a legal issue, but as something that is as relevant as day and night - do the people who operate and control schools, colleges and other educational institutions, as well as those who run hospitals, have to sell such junk food on or near their premises? Do sports event organisers have to provide high visibility to this garbage called junk food?
It is my submission that there needs to be some sort of self-control by people in the education, medical and sports organisations. They don't really need to wait for the law to tell them what to do. We need to see junk food and soft drinks out of and not anywhere near schools, colleges, hospitals and games fields. Voluntarily. As a social obligation as relevant as, say, civil rights. Now.
And replace them with healthy food and beverages.
After all, if we don't get junk food out of the system for our next generation, then who will?