Sir — As the Union Government deferred the April 1 deadline for increasing the size of pictorial warnings on tobacco products after pressure from various lobbies, the head of the parliamentary panel tasked with the issue, DM Gandhi, reportedly said there was no Indian study to confirm that use of tobacco products led to cancer.
India has the highest prevalence of oral cancer globally, with 75,000 to 80,000 new cases of oral cancer being reported every year, according to a report submitted by the Union Ministry of Health, in consultation with the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare, on the ill-effects of chewing tobacco. This is terribly tragic.