India's health minister calls for decriminalisation of homosexuality

A leading Cabinet minister in India has said that laws that criminalise gay sex should be overturned. Anbumani Ramadoss made his remarks at the 17th International Conference on AIDS in Mexico City last week. India has the greatest number of HIV/AIDS patients in the world, an estimated 2.5 million. "Structural discrimination against those who are vulnerable to HIV such as sex workers and MSM (men who have sex with men) must be removed if our prevention, care and treatment programmes are to succeed," he said, according to the Times of India. "Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalises men who have sex with men, must go." Mr Ramadoss is the country’s health minister. The 39-year-old Tamil doctor is the youngest member of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Cabinet and is tipped as a future leader. He told the... [read full story]