PadMan Actor Akshay Kumar Says, "Sanitary Napkins Should Be Free"

New Delhi: Akshay Kumar's upcoming film PadMan has made him quite aware of the situation of menstrual hygiene in India and the 50-year-old actor has many suggestions to overcome the shortcomings. During the film's promotion in Pune, Akshay said that 'sanitary napkins should be available for free.' News agency ANI quoted him as saying: "Women are going for tax free sanitary, but I say it should be completely free. Cut the five percent money from defense, make one bomb less and give it to women to get the sanitary napkin." PadMan is based on the life of Arunachalam Muruganantham, who invented a low-cost sanitary napkins making machine, the demo of which Akshay gave during Bigg Boss 11 finale over the weekend.



Akshay's PadMan is releasing on January 25 along with Deepika Padukone's Padmaavat but the actor is not worried about the box office clash or his film's commercial success. Akshay told news agency IANS that the bigger achievement for him is to get men discussing the issue of menstrual hygiene. "It is not necessary for me to think about how much business it is going to do but every morning, when I monitor my social media, I see people are talking openly about sanitary napkins and menstruation and that is I feel my film's biggest victory," he told IANS.

PadMan producer Twinkle Khanna echoed Akshay's words. She earlier told Reuters, "I am hopeful that something that has been hidden in the darkness... will finally be in the spotlight so that a young girl can go up to her parents and say that she needs sanitary napkins over the ubiquitous fairness creams."

PadMan is directed by R Balki and it also stars Sonam Kapoor and Radhika Apte.