Rahul Bose, the poster boy of Indian art house cinema, launched the Jeevika documentary festival here Thursday with an impassioned plea to help change the laws that end up enforcing poverty on small entrepreneurs.

The second annual two-day festival, organised by the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), showcases 15 documentaries by professional and amateur filmmakers on the legal, regulatory and bureaucratic practices that constrain the poor from earning an honest living.

Bose, who has just returned from a relief mission on the Andaman Island that was badly hit by the Dec 26 tsunamis, said: "Livelihood is the basic unit of self-respect. When you deny someone's right to livelihood, you are destroying his self-respect.

"As a country we need to think about that and learn to respect the services that others provide for us."

The actor's work for a network of NGOs in the tsunami devastated Andaman and Nicobar Islands has brought him face to face with the paralysing effects of lost livelihoods.

He said: "India has a reactive consciousness. We respond emotionally - and generously - to tragedies of great magnitude. But we have to become a country with a more consistent social consciousness."

Referring to the sorry plight of the city's 500,000 street vendors, 99 percent of whom are victims of extortion because they do not possess legitimate licenses, Bose called for a policy change in laws that hinder the fundamental right to earn a living.

"A Pakistani entrepreneur takes one third of the time taken by an Indian to set up a small business. Surely then something is wrong with the livelihood policies of our democratic nation," he said.

The actor joined the signature campaign, initiated by the CCS, to raise awareness about the country's crippling regulatory laws and bring them to the attention of top-level policymakers.

Talking about the proliferation of documentary filmmakers in India, Bose said: "It is time to think about the documentary form vis-à-vis this country."

With 300 to 400 digital theatres coming up in the country, Bose believes there is a huge scope for documentary filmmakers to make an impact on the mainstream, provided they are aggressive enough.

"Multiplexes will soon be starving for content and documentaries can fill that gap," said the actor. "Perhaps documentaries will have to ride piggy-back on more commercial features for some time.

"Hindi films are becoming shorter these days, so there is usually a 20-minute slot at the beginning when exhibitors might agree to show a documentary.

"But filmmakers will have to take a less apologetic stance with regard to advertising before the Indian documentary genre produces something comparable to 'Fahrenheit 9/11'," he said.

Asked if he had any writing projects in progress, Bose tells that he has just resumed writing a long delayed film script. "I'll speak about it when it's nearer completion," he said.

Bose has several new releases in the pipeline - including what he called "a quasi-Bollywood movie" titled "Silsiley" as well as more art house films like Aparna Sen's "15th Park Avenue" and Buddhadeb Dasgupta's "Kal Purush".