A strong initiative taken up by Farhan Akhtar, 'MARD' which stands for 'Men Against Rape and Discrimination' is a campaign to spread awareness about gender inequality.

This time the actor has tied up with the Indian Premier League (IPL) to promote this awareness on a larger scale.

On April 26, Farhan will be distributing around 70,000 mustaches in one of the biggest matches against Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Preity Zinta's Kings 11 Punjab (KXI) at Eden gardens.

All excited about it, he wrote on his microblogging page, "26th April. Eden Gardens, Kolkata. KKR vs KXI match is in support of the MARD initiative. Thank you IPL, Sony TV, Preity, SRK and teams."

Cricketer Harbhajan Singh also wrote on his microblogging page that read, "Delighted 2 infrm u tht Apr 26 game KKR vs KXI is now officially in support of MARD. IPL is supporting dis initiative by Farhan,Bling,JWT."

Since its conception in August, 2010, when Pallavi Purkayastha, a Mumbai lawyer was sexually assaulted and then killed by her home watchman, Aktar has been urging all his followers on his social networking sites to spread the message.

"You have to adopt the message and become its ambassadors. It can only spread as a pyramid effect through you," he wrote.

The actor has also taken up this campaign to school. He wanted a poem written by him for the same to be included in the school syllabus. The education board are still in conversation with Farhan to make a decision (read news).