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Contrary to popular belief, people in rural India seem to have woken up to the fact that daughters are as precious as sons. The Nagpur Zilla Parishad took note of this and felicitated 40 such couples, rewarding them with a national saving certificate worth Rs 10,000 for their conscious decision to limit their family to children even if both happened to be girls.

Vinn Pagtakhan, a registered nurse, with friends James Worrasaran and James Garcia Bon, established the Love Yourself Project last June. They turned to Facebook and Twitter to make more young people know HIV and AIDS and how to keep it from spreading, through education and counselling. Love Yourself Project’s main program is the free HIV counselling and testing. Held every quarter, the next free counseling and testing will be on Dec. 11. (For more information, log on to www.loveyourself.ph)

In the last three decades, HIV and AIDS has spread across all continents and claimed millions of lives. HIV proved to be a formidable enemy, resisting drugs quickly and evading potential vaccines. But the story of HIV and AIDS is also a tale of triumph of human ingenuity, determination and commitment. Infection with HIV was once considered a death sentence. But now progress achieved in the global response over the last decade has resulted in a 15 per cent reduction in new infections.

‘Thailand is in a very good position. It produces its own drugs, which are effective, and it has very well-trained people,’ Dr Michael Hahn, Country Coordinator, UNAIDS said, going on to remark that, as with scaling a peak, the higher one climbs, the harder it gets. The number of new HIV infections has dropped significantly since the 1990s, but the virus is still very much around. Total prevention is the final step this country needs to take, he said, and it will perhaps be the most difficult one.

New sex workers are entering the business at a fast pace, a joint-survey conducted by USAID/Nepal, Asha Project and the Ministry of Health and Population disclosed. The survey reveals that a higher proportion of female sex workers have joined sex industry in last 12 months. The study reveals that 40.3 percent respondents out of total have adopted the profession in past one year.