West Bengal Legislators’ Forum on HIV/AIDS

[Guest guest]

West Bengal Legislators' Forum on HIV/AIDS is launched.

4th August, 2004.

Today the Legislators' Forum on HIV/AIDS was lauched at Syed

Nausher Ali Hall,West Bengal Legislative Assembly amidst the

presence of dignitaries of the stature of the Hon'ble Chief

Minister,Govn. Of West Bengal Shri Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, Minister-

in-charge, Health and Family Welfare ,Govn of West Bengal Dr. Surjya

Kanta Mishra, Secretary,Ministry of Health,Govn of India Shri JVR

Prasada Rao, Hon'ble Union Minister for Statistics and Programme

Implementation, Shri Fernandes.

The event was chaired by Hon'ble Speaker of the Legislative Assembly

Shri Hashim Abdul Halim. The Hon'ble Chief Minister spoke in strong

terms about the need to give up the conventional puritan approach

and let sex and sexuality be discussed with youth and adolescents.

The Health Minister,Govn of West Bengal spoke about the need of

upscaling awareness generation activities for awareness being the

only way to prevention .Shri Fernandes spoke about the vast

reach of the MLA's in the mass and thus the tremendous need for them

as leaders to take up the crusade against HIV/AIDS. He further

related the 2003 July, New Delhi Parliamentary house's overwhelming

response to a similar initiative.

Shri JVR Prasada Rao spoke about the need to fight against stigma

and discrimination against PLWHA's and that doing away with the AIDS

related stigma was pre-requisite for the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

The West Bengal State AIDS Prevention and Control Society had

directed enough efforts towards the setting up of this forum and

with the take off of the event, the Society feels stronger with a

very big stakeholder group having joined hands with it, in it's

initiative to prevent and control the spread of HIV/AIDS.

S. Suresh kumar

E-mail: <s_suresh_k@...>