In recent years, health advocates in India have had something of a roller coaster ride. After years waiting for the thing to get going, at last they were up and away, only to feel that empty, falling feeling as they swooped down again, although still above their starting point. This is nowhere better illustrated than with tobacco pack health warnings.

Having at long last got a superb health minister and, having grown a tobacco control lobby worthy of its size and the massive task in hand, hopes were riding high that the federal government would press ahead with some truly world-leading warnings. Special factors had been taken into account, the most obvious being language. India, the second largest country in the world, still …