India will miss the deadline for a major initiative to dissuade smoking. Tobacco companies had been told late last year that starting April 1, they would have to stamp health warnings across 85 per cent of the surface of cigarette packets from next year.
However, a parliamentary committee has recommended more discussion on this, allowing tobacco firms a breather.
The head of that panel, BJP law-maker Dilip Kumar Gandhi, told NDTV today that India has little independent evidence to link cigarettes and cancer. "Does this (smoking) cause cancer or does not? What are the impacts? We have never done our own survey," he said.
"This is just a front for the tobacco industry, it's going to affect the bottom line of companies and that's the smoke screen they have put up," said Bhavna Mukhopadhyay, Executive Director of the Voluntary Health Association of India.
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In November, health campaigners had welcomed India's plans to raise the age for tobacco purchases to 25 and ban unpackaged cigarette sales, calling them a major step towards stopping nearly one million tobacco-related deaths a year.
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Around 900,000 people die of tobacco-related illnesses in India each year, the second-highest number after China, and experts predict that could rise to 1.5 million by the end of the decade.
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