Announcement of a new book on HIV/AIDS

[Guest guest]

AIDS AND CIVIL SOCIETY: INDIA'S LEARNING CURVE (eds),

Radhika Ramasubban and Bhanwar Rishyasringa.

Jaipur and N. Delhi: Rawat Publishers, 2005.

ISBN 81-7033-946-4, 244 pages, Rs. 475 (US$ 30).

www.rawatbooks.com

This book offers for the first time an inside view of NGO-led

HIV/AIDS interventions on the ground. The NGO sector is the most

visible face of civil society activism in India today, and NGOs have

to date offered the most creative and comprehensive responses to the

complex challenges of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Written as first-person accounts, the case studies in the book are

candid in the way they discuss experiments and failures, frustrations

and triumphs and, most importantly, learning curves in relation to

both disease and society. Taken together, the stories bring alive

some of the complex social and cultural issues surrounding HIV/AIDS

in the country.

In a fundamental sense, the introduction, overviews and case studies

in the book bring to the fore some of the most unexamined,

unquestioned and resilient aspects of Indian social and cultural

organization, i.e., the esocial and moral orderf, and the way

society perceives and responds to challenges to this order.

Growth of an enlightened understanding about HIV/AIDS among the

general public is an essential precursor for cogent public debate

around the many faces of the epidemic and their linkages to larger,

everyday economic, political and social issues. For, it is only when

HIV/AIDS moves out of the margins and the realm of ethe otherf, and

becomes everybodyfs business and concern, that there will emerge a

basis for the erosion of the terrible discrimination against those

affected by the disease, and for public pressure for more effective

policies for its control.

________________

The editors, Radhika Ramasubban and Bhanwar Rishyasringa, are social

scientists at the Centre for Social and Technological Change, an

independent research group in Mumbai that is committed to generating

knowledge about economic and social development processes,

particularly as they affect the poor in the country. The groupfs

work has, over the years, focused on issues relating to food, energy,

public health, drinking water, environmental sanitation and

education.

________________

CONTENTS

Preface; Introduction: Radhika Ramasubban and Bhanwar Rishyasringa.

SECTION ONE: Treatment and Care for People with HIV/AIDS : An

Overview;

The Continuum of Treatment and Care: The YRG CARE Model: Suniti

.

SECTION TWO: HIV/AIDS Interventions at the Workplace: An

Overview;

Tackling HIV/AIDS in the Industrial Workforce: The Efforts of

PREPARE: Jude s and Daisy Dharmaraj.

SECTION THREE: Raising Awareness about Sexuality : An Overview; A Telephone Help

Line for Sexuality: The Case of TARSHI: Radhika Chandiramani.

SECTION FOUR: HIV/AIDS and Women in Prostitution: An Overview; Organising Women

in Prostitution: The Case of SANGRAM: Meena Seshu.

SECTION FIVE: HIV/AIDS as a Human Rights Issue and Men Who Have Sex with Men:

An Overview; Client Advocacy and Service Provision : The Naz Foundationfs

Mission: Anjali Gopalan.

SECTION SIX: Legal Approaches to HIV/AIDS: An Overview; Meeting the Unmet Legal

Needs of Positive People: The Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit: Anand Grover.