The next time you think about lighting a cigarette, think again: India loses 990,000 people every year due to smoking. That's a scary 104 deaths every hour.
By 2010, 1 million Indians will die every year as the result of smoking – that's 114 deaths every hour.
It's the finding of a new study, the most comprehensive to date on the impact of smoking in India.
The study covered over 1 million homes across India. It found that 70 per cent of smokers who die as a result of smoking are aged between 30 and 69.
Tuberculosis is responsible for causing 38 per cent of smoking-related deaths in India and cancer accounts for 32 per cent.
The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that the number of deaths from smoking-related illnesses will rise to over 8 million in the next 20 years, with the maximum numbers coming from low and middle income countries like India, Bangladesh and Indonesia.