Although many nursed the hope that the Delhi Government would lower the legal drinking age from 25 to 21 this week, it was perhaps too much to ask in an election year. With the Sheila Dikshit Government saying a categorical "no go", the Capital retains its distinction of having one of the "highest" drinking age limits in the world. The important and much-debated question, of course, is: are such laws arbitrary? Do these actually help curb binge drinking, drunk-driving accidents or other alcohol-related problems? A look at drinking age laws of some other countries:

The United States Between 18 and 25

The US has uniformly the highest drinking age limit in the world (the legal drinking age varies between 18 and 25 across different states in India). According to the US National Underage Drinking Act of 1984, the age at which young people may start drinking alcohol across the country is 21. When certain states proposed reducing the limit to 18, the suggestion was met with public disapproval — a poll conducted by ABC News found that nearly eight in 10 Americans oppose lowering the drinking age in all states. Nonetheless, even though the US Department of Transportation insists that these laws have been instrumental in reducing traffic fatalities involving drivers between the ages of 18 and 20, the fact remains that between 1993 and 2001, this very age group showed the largest increase — 56 per cent — in binge drinking among American adults. In addition, 21 per cent of 16- to 20-year old drivers in fatal car accidents had enough alcohol in their systems to be considered legally impaired.

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