Read articles from India

January 14, 2019 by indiatimes.com

Food safety and standards authority of India (FSSAI) has submitted its reply before high court in a petition seeking printing of nicotine and tar content on cigarette packets, denying any regulation over smoking tobacco products or cigarettes.

FSSAI submitted that they could only regulate food items and were taking steps towards exercising the ban on use of nicotine and tar in food products, including pan masala and gutka.

January 08, 2019 by thewire.in

Various forms of e-cigarettes face growing resistance from the government in their efforts to break into the Indian market. At least three ministries have advanced new regulations on the marketing or import of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems – widely known as vapes – while the medical community debates their actual effects on health.

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) has proposed an amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2018 to ban the advertisement of e-cigarettes.

November 29, 2018 by livemint.com

Union health ministry has directed all States to make government buildings and offices “Tobacco Free” in order to protect public health. Health secretary Preeti Sudan has written to all State Chief Secretaries and Secretaries of all government departments that the ministry is ready to extend any technical support if required for the initiative. [...] The ministry of health and family welfare housed in Nirman Bhawan has already taken this initiative and issued a circular for banning use of any form of tobacco in the building.

November 13, 2018 by indiatimes.com

Uttarakhand high court (HC) on Monday directed the central government to “consider within a period of six months whether a part of Section 7 of The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products [...] should be brought into force or not.” Section 7 (5) of the Act stipulates that “no person shall directly or indirectly, produce, supply or distribute cigarettes or any other tobacco products unless every package of cigarettes produced, supplied or distributed by him indicates on its label, [...]

November 12, 2018 by telegraphindia.com

Maneesh Kasera was a smoker for 28 years. Two years ago, he made the first attempt to quit smoking. He tried nicotine gums — a kind of chewing gum that delivers nicotine to the body — for a day or two but nothing could wean him away from cigarettes. Finally, he tried e-cigarettes. [...] Like Kasera, many Indians are vaping — the term for using e-cigarettes. But the recent advisory from the Indian government to ban e-cigarettes has thrown vapers or e-cigarette smokers into a tizzy.

October 30, 2018 by indiatoday.in

The Central government's notification that packs of all tobacco products must carry its new warning - a scarier image & messaging and a toll-free number for help in quitting - has gone up in smoke in the Capital!

A Mail Today reality check at scores of shops across the city revealed that the order, effective in letter from September 1, has not been enforced in the past two months.

The Delhi state tobacco control cell admitted that it is flooded with complaints [...]

October 11, 2018 by indialegallive.com

That tobacco kills is a fact. Globally, more than 60 lakh of these deaths are the result of direct tobacco use, while around 8.9 lakh are due to non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. Smoking-related deaths are expected to increase to 80 lakh by 2030. Hence, it is important to reduce it, otherwise an estimated one billion lives will be lost prematurely by 2100, according to the Annual Review of Public Health. And this is where e-cigarettes come in.

October 01, 2018 by indiatimes.com

Tobacco sustains 50 million livelihoods in India and earns substantial revenue through exports and tax, but it also kills a million citizens every year and mounts an economic burden of over Rs 1 lakh crore in direct and indirect costs.

Caught between these two competing forces are the country’s 27 crore users who find themselves pushed to the frontlines in the state’s half-hearted war against tobacco.

September 27, 2018 by thehindu.com

Despite the Centre’s advisory issued last month asking the States to stop the sale of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) which use a nicotine-laced liquid, the Rajasthan government is yet to take action to protect the adolescents and youths against nicotine addiction. The sale of e-cigarettes continues unabated in the State. The Union Ministry of Health & Family Welfare had asked all States in an advisory issued on August 28 that the ENDS, [...] were not sold, manufactured, distributed, traded, imported and advertised in any manner.

September 25, 2018 by indiatimes.com

A special task force team of state drug controller has registered 37
cases against hookah bars across Haryana since
December 2017. Four such cases have been registered in
Panchkula alone. As of now, the authorities are finding it difficult to register anymore cases as hookah bars have stopped using flavours mixed with nicotine and were only adding nicotine as per the demand — that too in quantity, which is hard to trace.