Pictorial health warnings on cigarettes and other tobacco products will become mandatory as of 1 December 2007. The display of skull and crossbones will be optional.

This follows an amendment to the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act 2003.
The government has since notified the revised packaging and labelling rules whereby the pictorial depiction of skull and cross bones has been made optional and the pictorial representation of the dead body removed, an official release said on Tuesday.
Packs of cigarettes, gutkha and bidis manufactured after 1 December must have a depiction of the specified pictorial warnings. The ministry has come out with a set of four pictures in specified sizes which will have to be printed on every pack. (pi)