Jammu and Kashmir is fast emerging as the smoking capital of North India. The monthly spending on tobacco products far outstrips the national average.

Directors of 14 regional cancer centres across the country, including the Indian Dental Association and Tata Memorial Centre (TMC), have written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union Health Minister Ghulab Nabi Azad urging them to bring in a nationwide ban on the sale of gutka/pan masala products in the country.

The move comes after cancer specialists/oncologists, oral cancer victims and public health experts lauded the government for banning gutka in over 10 States under the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) regulations, which prohibit the addition of tobacco or nicotine in food, and urged the government to ensure effective implementation of this notification in all the States.

When it comes to pictorial warnings on tobacco packets, India ranks a low 123 among 198 countries surveyed on the warnings parameter.

Pictorial warnings on cigarette packs continue to sully India’s anti-tobacco efforts on the global arena.

India ranks shamefully low in a new report that put countries according to how successfully they managed to introduce pictorial health warnings on tobacco packets — a proven strategy that deters people from smoking or chewing tobacco.

According to the Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report, which was released at the fifth session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Seoul, South Korea, India ranked 123 among 198 countries surveyed on warning size and fulfilment of requirements for picture-based warnings on cigarette packets.

Latest addition will be insertion of the word “warning” in red font on the tobacco packs

In an effort to curb tobacco abuse in India, the Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has notified a new set of warnings to be depicted on tobacco product packs with effect from April next year. The latest addition will be the insertion of the word “warning” in red font on the tobacco packs. Also, a provision has been added to ensure a ratio is maintained between the vertical and horizontal length of the health warning to avoid distortion with the change in the size of packs.

Anti-tobacco groups in the country are up in arms against the smokeless tobacco industry which they claim is resorting to misleading advertisements that undermines the ill-effects of chewing gutka.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Voluntary Health Association of India executive director Bhavna Mukhopadhyay said: “The smokeless tobacco industry has recently resorted to giving misleading advertisements to the print publications thereby trying to influence the minds of the people. Gutka (chewing tobacco) industry is trying to make mockery of the ban issued by the government. These advertisements are a misleading campaigns and the tobacco industry is just trying to regain its profits.”

‘We have brought in stringent laws to check smoking in public places’

Members of various non-government organisations working in the area of tobacco control have demanded that Delhi too join the various States across the country and ban gutka/smokless tobacco products sale in the Capital which will have a direct health benefit for over 10 lakh gutka users specially youngsters. Voluntary Health Association of India executive director Bhavna Mukhopadhyay said: “We have met with the Delhi Chief Minister on Monday and asked her to consider the ban.

BHUBANESWAR: Even as the World No Tobacco Day was observed all across on Thursday, there are efforts to achieve the goal of making Cuttack and Khurda districts smoke-free.

NGOs have claimed that recent reports suggesting that one of the pictorial warnings for tobacco products resembles footballer John Terry could be an attempt by the manufacturers to scuttle the pictorial warnings once again.

In a recent RTI filed by the Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), the issue was brought to the notice of Union health ministry earlier in November by Philip Morris, manufacturer of the leading cigarette brand Marlboro. “However, digging the issue once again now could be a deliberate move by the manufacturers to put the warnings in trouble.”