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Press Release: Release of second edition (digital) of ‘Less than Gay’ – A Citizens’ Report on the status of Homosexuality in India

    The AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) is releasing the second edition of ‘ Less than Gay ’ – A Citizens’ Report on the status of Homo...

Friday 27 February 2015

DU students, teachers to campaign against sexual harassment law

Yes, even men can be sexually harassed; LGBT students should be able to file a complaint of sexual harassment. ABVA supports this campaign. It should be a nationwide movement. 
Read the story published in Indian Express on 10.02.2015 here:

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/du-students-teachers-to-campaign-against-sexual-harassment-law/

Monday 23 February 2015

Letter from ABVA to those funding SAATHII

To,
The Additional Secretary,
National AIDS Control Organization,
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,
Govt. of India, New Delhi.

Dear Sir,

I am writing on behalf of AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan, (ABVA) i.e. AIDS Anti-Discrimination Movement – a non-funded, non-party organization, established in 1988 – based in New Delhi, India. We understand that your organization has been funding/continues to fund the NGO SAATHII, with offices in various parts of India; the administrative headquarters of this NGO is at SAATHII Chennai, 78, Pushpa Nagar Main Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai- 600 034, email: info@saathii.org .

This is to bring to your kind notice that SAATHII has been organizing Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival since 2003 and has been using patently false and factually incorrect statements in their campaign material for this film festival. This action of SAATHII constitutes a criminal offence; as also infringement of intellectual property rights of ABVA. This has been continuing for over a decade.

ABVA has sent an e-mail (see below) on 18 February, 2015 to SAATHII detailing the falsehoods.
Kindly get an enquiry conducted at your end.

ABVA would be pursuing all avenues – including legal – to ensure that justice is done and work of a non-funded organization is not hijacked by vested interests to collect funds from all over the world.

Yours sincerely,
Shobha Aggarwal
Advocate & Member, ABVA


Email sent to SAATHII on 18 February, 2015

To
SAATHII,
229, Kalitala Main Road, Purbachal (North),
Kolkata 700 078, West Bengal.

Subject: Urgent rectification needed in the literature brought out by the organizers of Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival from 2005 onwards over several years till date

Sir/Madam,

It has been recently brought to our knowledge that certain statements carried in the literature circulated by your organization (freely available on the internet) regarding the work done by Siddhartha Gautam (S.G.) are patently false and factually incorrect.
We are tabulating some of them for your ready perusal and rectification.

S.No.
Statements
Correct Factual Position
1.
He was one of the first people in India to talk about HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue and started AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) in 1989-90 in New Delhi, the first AIDS activist group in the country.
ABVA was formed due to the collective efforts and commitment of a number of activists. Many of the activists had been working together in various campaigns from 1984 to 1988-89 which made it easier for these activists to come together to form ABVA. S.G. joined at this point of time. Giving credit to one individual for starting ABVA is an insult to all the ABVA members both dead and alive. S.G. was one of the members of ABVA. As a collective ABVA was one of the first organizations to talk about HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue. To be fair Ashok Row Kavi (Bombay Dost); Dr. I.S. Gilada (of erstwhile Indian Health Organization); and Dr. Suniti Soloman (Chennai) were easily the earliest to be active on these issues years before ABVA was formed. There must have been many more. Most importantly PWH&A (people with HIV & AIDS) who chose to maintain anonymity or carried pseudo-names. Perfectly understandable.

2.
ABVA also initiated a petition campaign that helped prevent the passing of the draconian AIDS (Prevention) Bill of 1989. Siddhartha’s work as a lawyer in New Delhi strengthened these efforts.
The said petition campaign was initiated much before S.G.  became a lawyer. ABVA had members who had a decade’s experience of using parliamentary techniques; their expertise was valuable.
3
He was responsible for bringing out “Less than Gay – A Citizen’s Report on the Status of Homosexuality in India”.
There were seven ABVA members who had co-authored the report; it was indeed a group effort of all the ABVA members and not just these seven and certainly not just one amongst these seven. The report is available at the following link:


the names of the seven co-authors can be verified.
4.
Siddhartha also worked with ABVA to publish a series of well-researched reports on the status of other vulnerable  groups of people like women in prostitution, professional blood donors and drug dependents, …
ABVA’s report titled Women And AIDS – Denial and Blame was authored by ten members including S.G. Another report titled Blood of the Professional was authored by just one member, Jagdish Bhardwaje. The report on drug dependents titled This Sugar is Bitter was conceived and brought out much after S.G.’s death!

The rectifications are urgently in order as some of the co-authors of these reports viz Jagdish Bhardwaje, Shalini SCN are since dead. This in no way belittles any single member’s contribution towards the cause. S.G.’s memory stays embedded in our mind and all ABVA members respected him during the brief 2-3 years he spent with ABVA before he died.
To ensure that individual members of ABVA or other vested interests do not belittle/ or take advantage of the collective’s work it was ensured that none of the four authors had their names carried in the ABVA’s report titled “Endless and Sickening Therapies for AIDS” published in 2002!

ABVA since its inception has been a non-funded group; all members – both living and dead – strongly subscribed to this policy as funding was a political issue. Attempts by vested interest to subvert the work of the collective, ABVA; and to highjack the work of the collective in the name of S.G. are condemnable and criminal. This is a blatant violation of ABVA’s intellectual property rights. A conspiracy appears to be afoot to collect funds in his memory; SAATHII appears to be just one of the many outfits involved. S.G. in his lifetime – in consonance with ABVA’s policy – did not accept funds.
This is for information of organizers of Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival.

You are requested to immediately remove all previous literature uploaded on the net which makes false and factually incorrect statements; and also ensure such violation of ABVA’s intellectual property rights is not repeated in future by your organization.

It is hoped that you will do the needful at the earliest and in any case not later than a period of one month from the date of receipt of this letter.

Thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Shobha Aggarwal
Advocate and member of ABVA


P.S. For more information about ABVA you may like to visit its blog at: http://aidsbhedbhavvirodhiandolan.blogspot.in/


Similar letters as above have been sent to all the funders of SAATHII. Following is the list of funders of SAATHII as available on its website.

 

Funders



GOVERNMENT AGENCIES



·                                 National AIDS Control Organisation
Department of AIDS Control (DAC)
Ministry of Health & Family Welfare
Government of India,
6th & 9th Floor, Chanderlok Building
36, Janpath, New Delhi - 110001
India
Web: www.nacoonline.org
·                                 Rajasthan State AIDS Control Society
Directorate of Medical & Health Services
Swasthya Bhawan, Tilak Marg C - Scheme,
Jaipur, Rajasthan
Web: www.rsacs.in
·                                 Orissa State AIDS Control Society
State AIDS Control Society,
Second Floor, Oil Orissa Building,
Nayapalli, Bhubaneswar
Orissa
Web: www.osacs.nic.in
·                                 Andhra Pradesh State AIDS Control Society
DM&HS Campus, Sultan Bazar, Koti,
Hyderabad - 500 095, India
Web: www.apsacs.org
·                                 Tamilnadu State AIDS Control Society
#417, Pantheon Road,
Egmore, Chennai-600 008,
Tamilnadu
Web: www.tansacs.in
·                                 West Bengal State AIDS Prevention & Control Society
Swasthya Bhawan, 1st Floor, Wing - B,
GN - 29, Sector - V, Salt Lake City,
Kolkata 700 091
West Bengal
Web: www.wbhealth.gov.in/wbsapcs


UN AGENCIES



·                                 The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
Geneva Secretariat
Chemin de Blandonnet 8
1214 Vernier
Geneva, Switzerland
http://www.theglobalfund.org
·                                 World Health Organization India Office,
537, “A” Wing, Nirman Bhawan, Maulana Azad Road,
New Delhi – 110 011
Web: www.whoindia.org
·                                 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Post Box No. 3059, 55 Lodhi Estate
New Delhi 110 003
Web: www.undp.org.in
·                                 UNAIDS
55 Lodhi Estate
New Delhi, 110 003
Web: www.unaids.org


BILATERAL AGENCIES



·                                 Department For International Development (DFID)
(Civil Society Challenge Fund)
1 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HE
England
Web: www.dfid.gov.uk
·                                 Delegation of the European Union to India
65, Golf Links
New Delhi - 110 003
Web: www.delind.ec.europa.eu/
·                                 United States Agency for International Development
American Embassy
New Delhi - 110 021
Web: www.usaid.gov/in/


FOUNDATIONS



·                                 Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation
2950, 31st Street # 125
Santa Monica
California 90405, USA
Web: www.pedaids.org
·                                 MAC AIDS Fund
130, Prince Street,
2nd Floor, New York,
NY 10012, USA
Email: macaidsf@maccosmetics.com
·                                 Elton John AIDS Foundation
1 Blythe Road
London, W14 0HG, England
Web: www.ejafuk.com
·                                 The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF)
7, Clifford Street
London WIS 2WE, England
Web: www.ciff.org
·                                 Johnson & Johnson
One Johnson & Johnson Plaza
Room WH2133
New Brunswick
New Jersey 08933, USA
Web: www.jnj.com
·                                 MAC India
ELCA Cosmetics Private Limited,
12A-05 Parinee Crescenzo (13th Floor),
C38-39 G Block, Behind MCA,
Bandra Kurla Complex, Bandra (E),
Mumbai 400 051.
Web: www.macaidsfund.org
·                                 John M Lloyd Foundation
11777, San Vicente
Boulevard, Suite 745
Los Angeles California 90049, USA
Web: www.johnmlloyd.org
·                                 Tides Center
29, Easton Street,
#2, Allston
MA 02134
Web: www.tides.org


INTERNATIONAL NGOS



·                                 American Jewish World Service
45 West 36th Street
10th Floor, New York
NY 10018, USA
Web: www.ajws.org
·                                 Interact Worldwide
Studio 325
Highgate Studios
53-79, Highgate Road
London NW5 1L, England
Web: www.interactworldwide.org
·                                 The University of New Mexico
Albuquerque,
NM 87131
·                                 Asha for Education (New York and New Jersy)
P.O.Box 322
New York
NY 10040 – 0322, USA
Web: www.ashanet.org
·                                 Asian Media information and Communication Centre
Jurong Point,
PO Box 360
Singapore - 916 412
Web: www.amic.org.sg
·                                 Family Health International (FHI)
2101 Wilson Boulevard
Suite 700, Arlington
VA 22201, USA
Web: www.fhi.org
·                                 William J. Clinton Foundation
A25, Hauz Khas,
New Delhi 110016
Web: www.clintonfoundation.org
·                                 The Futures Group
The Policy Project
1050, 17th street, NW
Suite 1000
Washington DC 20036
·                                 Asha for Education (Central New Jersey)
150 Maple Avenue, # 118,
South Plainfield, NJ 07080
Web: www.http://www.ashanet.org


NATIONAL NGOS



·                                 India HIV/AIDS Alliance
39 Nehru Place, Kushal House
Near Eros Old Continental Hotel
New Delhi - 110 019, India
·                                 Family Health International (FHI)
FHI 360
H-5, Green Park Extension
Ground Floor, New Delhi, 110 016
Email: fhiindia@fhiindia.org
·                                 Christian Children’s Fund
22, Museum Road,
Bangalore 560 001,
India
Web: www.childfund.org
·                                 ABK-AOTS DOSOKAI
Tamilnadu Centre, Chennai
3rd Floor, Chateau 'D' Ampa,
37 (110), Nelson Manickam Road,
Aminjikarai,
Chennai 600 029. India
Web: www.abkaotschennai.com
·                                 Oxfam (India) Trust
B- 55, First Floor
Shivalik, Malviya Nagar
New Delhi – 110 017, India
Web: www.oxfamint.org.in
·                                 St. John’s Medical College
Sarjapur Road
Bangalore – 560 034
·                                 AIDS Prevention and Care (APAC) Project –
Voluntary Health Services (VHS)
T.T.T.I. Post Adyar
Chennai – 600 113, India
Web: www.apacvhs.org
·                                 The Catholic Health Association of India
157/6, Staff Road,
Gunrock Enclave,
Secunderabad – 500009
Andhra Pradesh, India
Web: www.chaiindia.org
·                                 Population Foundation of India
B-28, Qutab Institutional Area
Tara Crescent, New Delhi - 110 016
INDIA
Web: www.populationfoundation.in
·                                 The Humsafar Trust
III floor, Manthan Plaza,
Nehru Road, Vakola, Santacruz (East),
Mumbai - 400 055, India
Web: www.humsafar.org
·                                 Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM)
11/4A 1st Floor, Double Storey Area
Prem Nagar, Janakpuri
New Delhi – 110 075, India
Web: www.msmasia.org

 



Friday 20 February 2015

SAATHII's Goebbelsian Lies & Funding

To

SAATHII,
229, Kalitala Main Road, Purbachal (North),
Kolkata 700 078, West Bengal.

Subject: Urgent rectification needed in the literature brought out by the organizers of Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival from 2005 onwards over several years till date

Sir/Madam,

It has been recently brought to our knowledge that certain statements carried in the literature circulated by your organization (freely available on the internet) regarding the work done by Siddhartha Gautam (S.G.) are patently false and factually incorrect.
We are tabulating some of them for your ready perusal and rectification.

S.No.
Statements
Correct Factual Position
1.
He was one of the first people in India to talk about HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue and started AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) in 1989-90 in New Delhi, the first AIDS activist group in the country.
ABVA was formed due to the collective efforts and commitment of a number of activists. Many of the activists had been working together in various campaigns from 1984 to 1988-89 which made it easier for these activists to come together to form ABVA. S.G. joined at this point of time. Giving credit to one individual for starting ABVA is an insult to all the ABVA members both dead and alive. S.G. was one of the members of ABVA. As a collective ABVA was one of the first organizations to talk about HIV/AIDS as a human rights issue. To be fair Ashok Row Kavi (Bombay Dost); Dr. I.S. Gilada (of erstwhile Indian Health Organization); and Dr. Suniti Soloman (Chennai) were easily the earliest to be active on these issues years before ABVA was formed. There must have been many more. Most importantly PWH&A (people with HIV & AIDS) who chose to maintain anonymity or carried pseudo-names. Perfectly understandable.

2.
ABVA also initiated a petition campaign that helped prevent the passing of the draconian AIDS (Prevention) Bill of 1989. Siddhartha’s work as a lawyer in New Delhi strengthened these efforts.
The said petition campaign was initiated much before S.G.  became a lawyer. ABVA had members who had a decade’s experience of using parliamentary techniques; their expertise was valuable.
3
He was responsible for bringing out “Less than Gay – A Citizen’s Report on the Status of Homosexuality in India”.
There were seven ABVA members who had co-authored the report; it was indeed a group effort of all the ABVA members and not just these seven and certainly not just one amongst these seven. The report is available at the following link:


the names of the seven co-authors can be verified.
4.
Siddhartha also worked with ABVA to publish a series of well-researched reports on the status of other vulnerable  groups of people like women in prostitution, professional blood donors and drug dependents, …
ABVA’s report titled Women And AIDS – Denial and Blame was authored by ten members including S.G. Another report titled Blood of the Professional was authored by just one member, Jagdish Bhardwaje. The report on drug dependents titled This Sugar is Bitter was conceived and brought out much after S.G.’s death!

The rectifications are urgently in order as some of the co-authors of these reports viz Jagdish Bhardwaje, Shalini SCN are since dead. This in no way belittles any single member’s contribution towards the cause. S.G.’s memory stays embedded in our mind and all ABVA members respected him during the brief 2-3 years he spent with ABVA before he died.

To ensure that individual members of ABVA or other vested interests do not belittle/ or take advantage of the collective’s work it was ensured that none of the four authors had their names carried in the ABVA’s report titled “Endless and Sickening Therapies for AIDS” published in 2002!

ABVA since its inception has been a non-funded group; all members – both living and dead – strongly subscribed to this policy as funding was a political issue. Attempts by vested interest to subvert the work of the collective, ABVA; and to highjack the work of the collective in the name of S.G. are condemnable and criminal. This is a blatant violation of ABVA’s intellectual property rights. A conspiracy appears to be afoot to collect funds in his memory; SAATHII appears to be just one of the many outfits involved. S.G. in his lifetime – in consonance with ABVA’s policy – did not accept funds.
This is for information of organizers of Siddhartha Gautam Film Festival.

You are requested to immediately remove all previous literature uploaded on the net which makes false and factually incorrect statements; and also ensure such violation of ABVA’s intellectual property rights is not repeated in future by your organization.

It is hoped that you will do the needful at the earliest and in any case not later than a period of one month from the date of receipt of this letter.

Thanks.
Yours sincerely,
Shobha Aggarwal
Advocate and member of ABVA


P.S. For more information about ABVA you may like to visit its blog at: http://aidsbhedbhavvirodhiandolan.blogspot.in/

Wednesday 18 February 2015

About AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA)


[AIDS Anti-Discrimination Movement]

In 1988, a group of Delhi based citizens involved in community work in education, health, law, women, gay, professional blood donors, drug abuse issues and in the peace movement, came together over the plight of women working on GB Road, Delhi’s red-light area. The entry into these communities was with a view to learning more about the problems of these defined groups and to see whether their viewpoints may be conveyed to the outside world. Also, if external support was needed, could it be extended on a long-term basis? When the group was started the focus was only on issues related to women in prostitution. Around the same time forcible testing for HIV infection among women in prostitution was started under an All India Institute of Medical Sciences - Indian Council of Medical Research (AIIMS-ICMR) scheme with the help of the police. AIDS and HIV infection therefore became part of the group’s concern. Public health policy for control of AIDS/HIV infection was based on targeting “high risk" groups. ABVA therefore started studying and documenting the issues related to those "target groups”. In this process other concerned citizens joined the group. The group has since taken a stand on all kinds of discrimination against “target groups".

ABVA was instrumental in stalling the Draconian AIDS (Prevention) Bill, 1989 through petitions in Parliament, public meetings, protest actions and networking in India and abroad. As a result, the Bill was placed before a Joint Parliamentary Committee. The Bill was withdrawn in October-November 1991 following a decision of the Union Cabinet.

ABVA’s petition to Petitions Committee of Rajya Sabha against the discriminatory Supreme Court order banning Professional Blood Donors from giving blood is pending since Sept.-Oct. ’98.

ABVA has brought out a series of Citizens’ Reports on ‘target groups’:
WOMEN & AIDS - Denial and Blame, 1990
AIDS & MANAVA ADHIKARON KA SANKAT, 1991, (Hindi)
THE BLOOD OF THE PROFESSIONALS, 1991
LESS THAN GAY, 1991
THIS SUGAR IS BITTER, 1992
HARD TIMES FOR POSITIVE TRAVEL, 1993
THE NEEDLE OF SUSPICION, 1996
FOR PEOPLE LIKE US, 1999
HUM JAISE LOG, 2001, (Hindi)
ENDLESS AND SICKENING THERAPIES FOR AIDS, 2002

Apart from the above reports on ‘target groups’ ABVA has brought out a report on anti-Muslim violence following the demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. Titled VICTIMS’ VERSION, it was released in 1993. Also, ABVA participated in a fact-finding and report writing process which culminated in a report, titled ‘IS PLAGUE OVER?’, on the plague epidemic which had engulfed Delhi and other parts of India in 1994.

As a constituent member of the Delhi Janwadi Adhikar Manch (DJAM) – a democratic rights group formed to support the struggle of industrial workers rendered unemployed due to the 1996 Supreme Court order on shifting of ‘polluting industries’ to other parts of the country – ABVA participated in bringing out a series of reports on the issue as well as took part in popular protest rallies etc. DJAM consisted of organisations with diverse backgrounds viz. - trade unions, students unions, women’s groups, health and education groups, civil liberties and democratic rights organisations, cultural and secular groups, dalit organisations and organisations involved in a housing rights campaign and professionals in various fields. The DJAM worked as an effective democratic coalition.


In 1998-99, ABVA as a member of Campaign for Lesbian Rights (CALERI) actively participated in its campaign including leafleting in different parts of Delhi; ABVA contributed in the report 'LESBIAN EMERGENCE' brought out by CALERI.



ABVA has organised several protests against the government’s policies on testing, confidentiality and discrimination linked with AIDS.

28 February, 1990
Protest against the refusal of doctors at AIIMS, New Delhi to operate upon an African envoy with AIDS at the ICMR headquarters.
30 November, 1990
Staged a protest demonstration at the head office of the Medical Council of India (MCI), urging it to remove from its Medical Register the names of doctors who refused to treat persons with HIV infection/AIDS. About five months later, the Indian Medical Association responded by publicly stating that a refusal to treat patients with HIV infection/AIDS would be against medical ethics.
18 March, 1991
Protested outside the head office of the then New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC) following refusal by the NDMC Hospital at Moti Bagh, New Delhi, to treat children with Thalassaemia who had contracted HIV infection through blood transfusion.
7 August, 1991
A 500 strong sit-in was organised at AIIMS following refusal by doctors at the premier medical institute of the country to conduct a delivery on an HlV positive pregnant woman.
6 December, 1991
Protested outside the World Bank office against the use of loan/grant of US $80 million to the Government of India; ABVA feels that rehabilitation of HIV positive persons should be an important part of management. Any programme, which does not take this into consideration, should not be funded. No programme should violate the basic rights of the individual.
6 April, 1992
On the eve of World Health Day, ABVA and 37 other concerned organisations protested outside the World Health Organisation (WHO), South East Asia Regional Office, New Delhi, against plans for trials of AIDS Vaccine in developing countries.
11 August, 1992
Held the first ever protest demonstration in India condemning police atrocities on gay people, at Police Headquarters, New Delhi, after 18 persons had been arrested by the Delhi Police from the Central Park at Connaught Place on grounds of being involved in ‘homosexual acts’.
30 November, 1993
Held a demonstration at the New Delhi based office   of the United Nations protesting against the policy of the Indian Government to deport HlV+ foreigners. 
6 April, 1994
Organised a demonstration at the office of the National Human Rights Commission protesting against the refusal of treatment to Deepak Biswas, suffering from AIDS in Calcutta.
30 November, 1994
Organised a demonstration at the office of thNational AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), New Delhi, protesting against the forcible HIV testing of women in prostitution in Calcutta.
26 September, 1995
Held a demonstration at the national Protest site Jantar Mantar, New Delhi to protest against the supply of HIV infected blood to thalassaemic children by the Indian Red Cross
Society, Bombay.
30 November, 1995
Held a demonstration at the office of the Union Health Ministry, Govt. of India demanding that the report oh the BIV vaccine trial in Bombay be made public.
10 December, 1996
Protested at the American Centre, New Delhi against the illegal BIV Vaccine trial conducted at the behest of American vested interests.
7 April, 1998
Protested at the Supreme Court of India against the ban on Professional Donors.
30 December, 1998
Organised a public meeting regarding rehabilitation of Professional Blood Donors at National Gandhi Museum, Rajghat, New Delhi.

Legal Struggles: present status
On March 15, 1990 the Delhi Police acquired further notoriety when they arrested 112 women and children from Delhi’s red light area in a lightning raid under the Juvenile Justice Act, 1986. Even after the Juvenile Welfare Board pronounced that the children were not neglected, the State went in appeal. ABVA, with the help of a lawyer member, provided free legal support to the respondents.

Accordingly an application was filed on 25 February, 1991 for a summary dismissal of the appeal. The appeal was finally dismissed in March 1995, after five years of legal battle.


An intervention, by a member of ABVA and President of Fellowship for Blood Donors, in a petition filed by Common Cause in the Supreme Court of India was dismissed without assigning any reasons. Without hearing the views of the Professional Blood Donors (PBDs) in a judgment passed on January 4, 1996 in the Common Cause petition the Supreme Court put a ban on PBDs; no rehabilitation scheme of PBDs has come about. They stand criminalized.

In March 1994, the first ever public interest litigation was filed in Delhi High Court by ABVA to repeal Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalizes sodomy and makes it punishable with imprisonment of up to ten years and fine. The petition arose out of a public controversy over the refusal of authorities to make condoms available to inmates of Tihar jail. The prayers were as follows:
(a) to declare that section 377 of the Indian Penal Code is unconstitutional and void as being hit by the provisions of Articles 13, 14 and 21 and 25 of the Constitution of India.
(b) to direct the implementation of the Government’s National AIDS Programme.
(c) to declare that all action and proceedings purporting to have been done or taken by the respondents and each of them under the said unconstitutional and void law are wholly unauthorised by law, illegal and void and not binding on the jail inmates.
(d) to restrain the respondents from segregating or isolating prisoners with a certain sexual orientation or those suffering from AIDS or from commencing prosecution against those prisoners who are suspected to have participated in consensual anal intercourse.
(e)  to direct the respondents to immediately make condoms available at the dispensary within Tihar jail, where prisoners can freely obtain them without fear that they will be persecuted on account of their sexual orientation.
(f)  to direct that only disposable syringes be used in the dispensary within Tihar Jail.
(g)  to direct the jail authorities to regularly consult with the National AIDS Control Organisation, namely the Respondent No. 6.
(h) may pass any other writ, direction or order as this Hon’ble Court deems fit and proper in the circumstances of this case.

This case – which became a focal point for net working and campaigning amongst gay and lesbian groups all over the country – was dismissed in 2001.