Partnerships For Health - India Needs Them

Resources from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS,Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) constituted almost 17 per cent of India's health budget for HIV, TB and Malaria in the fiscal year 2018.With the Global Fund Replenishment round coming up in October, and India hosting a prereplenishment round for the first time this February, Bharathi Ghanashyam, founder/editor, Journalists Against TB, explains why an added commitment from India's political leadership, in terms of an increased pledge to Global Fund is crucial for the country's progress towards better health outcomes and human rights.

“When I first mooted the idea of the Global Fund, people said I was dreaming… I love dreams. It always starts with a dream.” - Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General United Nations Changing lives

On December 12, 2013, the Supreme Court of India overturned a Delhi High Court verdict that had set aside a law framed in 1860 and decriminalised consensual sex among adult homosexual men. Justifying its ruling, it said, “The High Court overlooked that a miniscule fraction of the country’s population constitute lesbians, gays, bisexuals or transgenders and in last more than 150 years, less than 200 persons have been prosecuted for committing offence under Section 377.”

Rajesh Srinivas, Executive Director, Sangama (an organisation that works for the rights of individuals oppressed due to their sexual preference and gender identity), Bengaluru, says, “In one stroke, the judgment had erased our existence. Miniscule though we may be in terms of numbers, each of these numbers has a face, a body and the capacity to feel joy, pain and sorrow. And yet, this judgement had negated our space on earth. It also shattered lives as there were people who had declared their sexual orientation after the Delhi High Court judgment and began to feel threatened again. We then launched 207 against 377, where 207 grassroots organisations protested and fought forth judgment to be set aside. It took five years but the Supreme Court of India ruled in our favour and decriminalised a part of Section 377 of the IPC which criminalises consensual unnatural sex. The Global Fund stood by us during this fight.”