Gandhiji said, ‘Consumer is the king.’ For a leader with a focussed approach to freedom-struggle, it’s among the least expected observations from him. Yet, decades down the line, he is being proved right, in more ways than one. On the one hand, there is a greater awareness about consumer conscience and consciousness – and their rights and possibilities. On the other, there is this unhealthy competition to cloud and confuse the consumer, for a better market-share. The good thing about it all is that consumers, starting with organised consumer rights groups and more so the nation’s Judiciary has come to play a purposeful role in righting the industry’s wrongs, real and perceived. Of course, there are any number of consumer protection laws, both stand-alone ones and those that have been written into other pieces of parent legislation. Has this made the Ad War, in the name of targeting consumers more purposeful and real, or reckless and surreal? And where should the industry, including the highly-successful Ad industry in the country, draw the red-line, the Lakshman Rekha that neither should cross lest it should lead to consequences that could be impalpable for all, starting with the consumer?