India has suspended plans for bigger health warnings on cigarette packets - after a committee of MPs demanded local evidence that smoking causes cancer.

The government announced last year that tobacco companies would have to stamp warnings across most of the surface of packets from April the first.

But that plan's been delayed.

A parliamentary panel, which is examining proposed legislative changes on the issue, says there's no Indian study linking smoking with cancer.

It also warns that millions of farmers and others employed in India's tobacco industry would lose their jobs if cigarette sales dropped as a result of the new packaging.

International estimates suggest India will record 1.5 million tobacco related deaths a year by 2020.