India - will pictorial or graphic health warnings be implemented from May 30, 2009..

April 23, 2009 - NEW DELHI: Politics may shelve India's ambitious plan to introduce pictorial warnings on tobacco packets from May 31, 2009. The deadline for warnings was moved for the fifth time in two years from December 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009. These pictorial warnings were to come into effect from November 30, 2008.

With bidi and tobacco workers forming a 10-lakh (a lakh (Hindi: लाख) (also written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand) strong vote bank in India, the group of ministers (GoM) headed by foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee is expected to put on hold the pictorial warnings, when they meet.

Article 11 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) imposes a time - bound obligation on each of its signatory parties, of which India is also a part, to implement pictorial health warnings on tobacco product packages within 3 years of its coming into force. The deadline for India to implement pictorial health warning was 27 February 2008.

References: Pictorial warning on tobacco packets may get further delayed, The Times of India, 4/8/2009; Pictorial health warnings on tobacco products from 30th May 2009, Thaindian News, 4/17/2009;
India Stalls Graphic Warnings on Tobacco Products, Source-Shobha Shukla (CNS), Medindia.com, 12/02/2008.