April 18, 2012 Clippings

'Fight AIDS with zeal of Quit India movement'

With Karnataka being one of the six states with a high prevalence of HIV infected persons, the arrival of Red Ribbon Express in the city on Monday has instilled hope among organisations working towards prevention of AIDS and eradication of myths associated with it.

After inaugurating the Express, state law minister Suresh Kumar said, “We need to take up the issue like Indians took to the Quit India movement in 1942, especially considering that we have three districts in our state with a chronic prevalence of HIV (Belgaum, Bijapur and Bagalkote).”

There are certain myths about AIDS due to lack of adequate knowledge about the disease. “Those affected by AIDS need our support and help and not face discrimination based on ignorance,” he added.

Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society, the National AIDS Control Society and other organisations working for those affected by the disease hope this campaign will provide some perspective towards prevention of the dreaded disease, as well as addressing the discrimination faced by the affected persons.

Such a long journey

Cited as the world’s biggest mid media campaign on AIDS, the Red Ribbon Express is a specially designed exhibition train on HIV and AIDS. It began its journey on Dec 2007 and in the first phase covered 180 stations across 24 states and directly reached out to 6.2 million people, spreading the message of AIDS prevention and treatment.

Phase 2 began on Dec 1, 2009, covering 25,000 km, and it stopped at 152 stations, across 22 states. During the current phase 3, the train will stop at 162 stations across 23 states. The train arrived in the city after touching five districts of Belgaum, Harihara (Davangere), Dharwad, Gadag and Bidar. It will be at the Cantonment station till 6 pm on Tuesday, after which it will leave for Ashokapuram in Mysore and Kolar.

In the five districts of the state, more than 2.25 lakh people visited the exhibition and 3,148 voluntarily underwent the AIDS tests.

Student push for exhibition

The third phase of the train’s journey through the country began this year on January 12 (National Youth Day). The speakers at the inaugural function called on the youth to be careful in their daily behaviour.

Over 100 students of the Karnataka Vidhyarthi Koota (KVK) organised a signature campaign and a procession in Shivajinagar area to spread the message of blood donation and the need to undergo AIDS tests.

Source: www.dnaindia.com            18.04.2012 

Bangalore lawyers lend a hand to HIV widows

The state government is planning to offer legal services to HIV/AIDS patients who are discriminated against over issues such as right to property.

The Karnataka State AIDS Prevention Society (KSAPS) is thinking of offering legal services to them at various antiretroviral therapy (ART) centres soon.

There are 44 ART centres across the state where about 65,000 HIV positive people are availing the first line ART.

Majority among the estimated 2.4 lakh HIV positive people are women. Among them, 67% are widows.

Many of them are denied share in property as their in-laws consider them as the cause for their sons dying of HIV or AIDS.

“The proposal to provide legal services will be a great help for widows living with HIV. I had referred a few cases relating to their property disputes to lawyers. Now that the government itself is coming forward to provide them legal services, they need not garner money to pay lawyers or for court fee,’’ said Jyothi Kiran of Milana, a non-government organisation working for people living with HIV.

The society, in association with the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority, had organised training programmes for lawyers in Belgaum and Bangalore.

About 100 lawyers attended the meet in Belgaum while 135 lawyers attended the programme in Bangalore.

“The lawyers, who attended the training programmes, will train other lawyers at taluk level,” said Surekha Shetty, legal officer, Lawyers’ Collective.

The assigned lawyers will visit the ART centres once or twice in a week to receive complaints pertaining to property disputes or discrimination from people living with HIV.

Source: www.dnaindia.com           

18.04.2012

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