India announced on Wednesday a ban on the sale of electronic cigarettes, as a backlash gathers pace worldwide about a technology promoted as less harmful than smoking tobacco. The announcement by India came a day after New York became the second US state to ban flavoured e-cigarettes following a string of vaping-linked deaths. E-cigarettes heat up a liquid — tasting of anything from bourbon to bubble gum or just tobacco, and which usually contains nicotine — into vapour which is inhaled.