India AIDS situation The following facts are based on a recent three city tour of India and participation in the World Economic Forum Southern Africa Economic Summit in May 1997.

The following was written after consultation meetings with NGOs in Calcutta, Bombay, Delhi and Manipur, March 1997, including visits to the sick and dying in rural areas and discussions with commercial sex workers.

India is about to be hit by the world's worst AIDS epidemic, as a country of almost a billion people. Soon there could be more people infected there with HIV than in the whole of Africa today, more cases perhaps by 2005 than the whole world has today. While many industrialised nations have chosen to ignore the devastation in Africa, the unfolding catastrophe in the Far East is already touching many other nations. It will have an obvious and significant effect on the world economy, threatening tiger economies and discouraging investment, with a heavy toll on the health of the workforce.

Reactions against globalisation will threaten international trade and economic growt. Expect calls to grow for trade barriers in some nations, with retaliation by others. Despite these things, expect huge growth in volume and value of imported or exported goods and services, especially between emerging economies such as India or China.

Married couples in future can expect adultery to be a normal part of their lives. Commitment should be based on mutual needs rather than romantic love. Those are the views of Professor Carol Smart of Leeds University.

(Archive material - published feature Daily Telepgraph in 1996).