Children Under 16 Not Allowed To Watch Noor In Singapore

If you’ve seen Sunil Sippy’s zany look-see at a young scribe’s misadventures in Mumbai, you would know that Sonakshi Sinha drinks her heart’s content in Noor.

In fact there’s so much booze-bingeing in the film that the censor board of Singapore has clamped down on the otherwise innocuous film , granting it the draconian  NC16 rating which means ‘No Children Under 16 Allowed’.

This stern rebuke to the film’s heroine’s  exceptional consumption of alcohol comes  after much debate  and deliberation.

Pahlaj Nihalani the chairperson of the Indian CBFC is quick to point  out  the discrepancy in the attitude of the Indian censor board and its counterpart abroad.

“In Singapore they were reluctant to grant any censor certificate  to Noor. They did so just hours before release , gave it a  NC16 rating which means  the film is restricted for viewers under 16. Here in India we gave Noor a ‘UA’ and that makes the film accessible to children  of all ages as long as they are accompanied by an adult .”

Pahlaj says the Indian censor board goes out of the way to bend guidelines.“ The CBFC is accused of being  over-conservative. But we  are far more liberal than the censor in many parts of the world .Though tobacco and alcohol consumption is restricted by  censors the worldover we allow it because if we don’t we’re called prudes.On the other hand we’re being questioned on why so much alcohol consumption is  allowed in Noor. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”