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: http://www.sacw.net/article10497.html   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

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GOVERNMENT AGENCIES

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·                                 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

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UN AGENCIES

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·                                 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

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BILATERAL AGENCIES

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·                                 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/

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FOUNDATIONS

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·                                 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

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INTERNATIONAL NGOS

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·                                 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

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NATIONAL NGOS

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·                                 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