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India has more AIDS orphans than any other country in the world: currently estimated at 1,262,600.

At the International Conference in Barcelona "Children on the Brink 2002" was released. This joint publication by UNAIDS/UNICEF/USAID includes global estimates for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Many of you may be taken by surprise to learn that India now has more orphans caused by HIV/AIDS than any other country in the world.

A first glance at the tables included in this booklet will not tell you this straight away. The official statement from the joint team is that the data was not available. I was given some inside information however that it was the Indian government that refused to allow this data to be published. It is certainly not
true that data was not available - the totals are included, so all you have to do is subtract the total for other countries from the total given to fill in the blank for India.

  The result of this exercise is staggering. India currently has 1,262,600 (12.6 Lakhs) children orphaned by AIDS. This will double in just a few years, will
reach 27 Lakhs by the end of the decade, and continue to rise beyond that.

A situation that the
 

Indian government seems keen to cover up.

"Children on the Brink" it can be downloaded here. Don't be put off by the blanks for India - just add up the rest of Asia, take this away from the total at the bottom of the page - that's the Indian total.

— Neil Monk