Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare reported that all tobacco products will display approved pictorial warnings from 30 November 2008. On cigarette packages will appear grim images of diseased lungs and on the bidi and gutkha packets which covers 40 percent of the surface area of the tobacco packets, with the message: 'Tobacco kills or Smoking kills'.

The warnings were finally approved by a Group of Ministers (GoM), including the Union External Affairs Minister - Pranab Mukherjee, the Union Information and Broadcasting Minister - PR Dasmunsi, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment - Oscar Fernandes the Union Minister for Commerce and Industry -Kamal Nath, Union Minister for Culture and Urban Development -Jaipal Reddy and Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss.

Now, the tobacco industry has been given three months time to put up the pictorial warnings on the cigarette packages. Several nations have implemented strong health warning label requirements. For examples:

• Canada, whose health minister recently proposed enlarging the labels from 30% of the package face to 60%;
• Thailand, which has added the message "SMOKING CAUSES IMPOTENCE" to its list of required warnings; and
• Australia, which was the first nation to require that "how to quit" information be printed on every pack.
• South Africa, Singapore and Poland also require strong warning labels.

Researchers think that these pictorial warnings provide smokers with helpful information on the health effects. But the tobacco industry is continuing its decades-long strategy of trying to minimize the effectiveness of package warnings. The people have to understand that the tobacco industry is no friend of smokers - and ironically it's true that 'the tobacco industry kills its best customers'.