Gates gives $100 m to combat AIDS in India

NEW DELHI: Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates announced a $100 million grant to battle HIV/AIDS in India, which has the world's second largest number of victims of the deadly disease. The announcement came at the start of a four-day visit by Gates to India.

A foundation statement said the India AIDS Initiative would work to provide mobile populations better access to proven HIV-prevention interventions. The drive would target truck drivers and migrant laborers, among others, who are seen as vulnerable to HIV infection.

India has four million HIV-positive cases, the highest after South Africa. Some reports estimate the number of people afflicted in India could reach 20 million by 2010. Some 20 percent of Microsoft's engineers are of Indian origin and Gates said in a recent interview the company took a special interest in the country because of that.

Earlier, Gates met patients suffering from HIV/AIDS at Naz Foundation, an Indian volunteer group working to heighten awareness about the disease. Gates, the richest man in the world and whose company dominates the personal computer software market, will also meet Indian leaders, business people and technology experts during the four-day trip.

A government spokesman said Gates met Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and briefed him about his charity's efforts to spread AIDS awareness in India. Vajpayee assured Gates that the government would cooperate with the charity in its programmes, the spokesman said.

Gates, on his third Indian visit in five years, is also expected to announce that Microsoft is stepping up its Indian software involvement, a source close to the company told Reuters. Microsoft has a software centre in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, one of the few outside the United States. Gates is due to meet Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who is keen to harness software for use by India's masses.

© Reuters