Kolkata: Actress Juhi Chawla in her new role as an anti-radiation activist today advised parents not to talk to their young kids on cell-phones to preempt any risk to their health from radiation.
"We want our kids to say "hello mummy", "hello daddy" on cell-phones. Please be careful as children absorb more radiation than adults. We don't know what will happen as mobile telephony is a recent technology. We should rather be safe," Chawla said.
The bubbly actress, who also co-owns the IPL team KKR, is advocating for safe use of mobile devices.
"Anyone who says radiation is harmless is lying," she told members of the Ladies Study Group at a session here.
She argued that when radiation from microwaves is considered unsafe for pregnant women then how can mobile phone radiation be safe for us.
"Nothing will happen in a day or in few months. But you may have problems in the next few years," she warned adding that mobile phones are not toys which can be used the way one wants it.
Highlighting on the do's and don'ts of using mobiles, she said phones should be kept at a distance away from the ears.
"Keep your calls short. Don't use bluetooth for talking as it again means using radiation. Use earphones instead. And try to avoid talking long inside a car as the radiation increases in an enclosed space," Chawla said.
The former Miss India said that it took 50 years for the tobacco lobby to bow down to people's pressure and since we are not born in the mobile phone era, let us not wake up twenty years to find ourselves printing ugly pictures on the cell phone boxes.
