-The Hindu India on Wednesday launched third-line drug therapy for people living with HIV/AIDS and extended free anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to more of them by revising the eligibility norm. The third-line therapy, sometimes called salvage or rescue therapy, is prescribed for people who have limited drug options left - after the failure of at least two drug regimens and with evidence of HIV resistance to at least one drug in each line...

-Down to Earth Activists demand its early passage to check discrimination against affected people in education, healthcare, employment, travel and insurance A much-awaited Bill, meant to protect people living with HIV/AIDS from all types of discrimination, was introduced in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. The Bill, drafted in 2006, was introduced by Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Prevention and Control) Bill or the HIV/AIDS Bill,...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Supreme Court order upholding a 153-year-old law that effectively criminalises gay sex has ignored scientific evidence that homosexuality is not deviant in any sense, but merely a variation in human sexual behaviour, experts and lawyers have said. The court has virtually "brushed aside" submissions by medical experts that homosexuality is not a mental health disorder and should not be viewed as a criminal activity, said lawyers...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: People infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) across India will receive free anti-HIV therapy even while their immune systems are still strong under new guidelines adopted by India's National AIDS Control Programme. The National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco) will provide anti-HIV therapy when the number of a class of white blood cells called CD4 drops to 500 cells per cubic mm or lower, senior Naco officials said....

-The United Nations Treatment has saved the lives of more than 22 million people with tuberculosis (TB), according to a new report by the United Nations health agency that also reveals that the number of deaths from the disease fell to 1.3 million last year. The Global Tuberculosis Report 2013, published today by the World Health Organization (WHO), confirms that the world is on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...