se combined efforts have been instrumental in raising awareness among the masses regarding the ill effects of tobacco consumption and have been discouraging people from adopting this habit. 
The World Health Organization explains that consumers have "fundamental right to accurate information" about the risks of smoking, with warnings on tobacco packaging as a simple means of communicating these risks.  More than 60 countries now require pictorial health warnings on packs and in five countries they cover 75% or more of the principal surfaces (Canada, Brunei, Uruguay, Sri Lanka, Australia). In India too, a mandate on the display of such warnings has been implemented. Three different pictorial and many textual warnings on rotation basis are used. These warnings usually state "smoking is injurious to health" and "chewing tobacco causes oral cancer" in local languages to make it more effective. 
According to the United Nations (UNICEF 2011), adolescent are the people in the age group of 11-19 years.  As we know it is the age of experimentation which often is instrumental in the initiation of tobacco related habits. The individuals in this age group are very much inquisitive and want to try different things so the chances of being a tobacco addict are very high among them. According to the global youth and adult tobacco survey it has been found that initiation of tobacco habits starts at an average age 17.9 years in males and 21.0 years in females. 
Government of India as a part of its campaign against tobacco use has mandated the presence of pictorial warning on the packs of tobacco: Smoked and smokeless. These warnings are depicted with a hope that they will deter the individuals from using tobacco and inform them regarding the risks of tobacco. Yet there is lack of information regarding the comprehension of these signs by the adolescents. Such information will give an insight into the thinking process of the adolescents regarding these warnings. This is the first study of its kind in Western Maharashtra exploring the other side of the scenario of tobacco free initiative. In our study, Satara district was chosen as the study area as Maharashtra is one of the leading states in tobacco consumption and it has been observed on a national and state level survey that age of initiation of tobacco habits is quite young in these state inhabitants. Hence, this study was conducted with the aim to assess the understanding, credibility and persuasiveness of the adolescents regarding the pictorial and textual warnings on reverse panel of smoked and chewable tobacco packages.
| Materials and methods|| |
A cross-sectional study was conducted among adolescents group of Satara district from May to June 2014. The study population was the adolescents belonging to the age group of 11-19 years attending the educational institutions of Satara district in Western Maharashtra. It is inhabited by 74,335 people with an average literacy rate of 76%, which is higher than the national average.  An Ethical Clearance was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee to initiate the study. Informed consent was obtained from all the study participants. All necessary permissions were obtained from the concerned authorities.
A pilot study was conducted among 30 adolescents to assess the feasibility of the study. As per the results of the pilot study, the sample size was determined 500 study subjects with the probability of 90% and error of 5%. The questionnaire used for this study was translated to Marathi which is the local language and back translated to English by a bilingual expert and the face and content validity was assessed. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed in pilot study by measuring Cronbach's alpha and inter-item correlations. The internal consistency reliability coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) for the questionnaire was 0.71. The item-scale correlations of all the items of questionnaire ranged from 0.52 to 0.60, in which none was less than the minimum acceptable level of 0.4.
A list of institutions was obtained and from them the s