Thaindian News

Bangalore, March 12 (IANS) Help of religious scriptures is being sought at a two-day meeting here to end discrimination against people with HIV and AIDS and create awareness to contain the spread of the disease.

The inter-faith meeting began Saturday with Art of Living (AoL) founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar pointing out that “none of the great religious scriptures of the world teach and preach discrimination against people suffering from HIV and AIDS”.

The meeting has been organised by the Art of Living in partnership with UNAIDS, AINA (Asian Interfaith Network on HIV and AIDS), Indian Interfaith Coalition on HIV-AIDS, an AoL release said.

The meeting follows “a directive from the Government of India, Department of Health and Family Planning”, the release said.

Scholars and religious leaders representing Muslim, Christian, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist and Hindu faiths “will study the respective approaches and collate it in a document to be used by NACO (National AIDS Control Organisation) and Department of Health and Family planning for public messages on HIV and AIDS”, it said.

“We have gathered here to find solutions from our great scriptures which would authenticate our contention that there should not be any discrimination,” Ravi Shankar said.

Asa Anderson of UNAIDS said: “Our aim is to come to a zero — zero new HIV infections, zero HIV-related deaths and zero discrimination.”

The release said Indian Inter faith Coalition on HIV AIDS and International Network of Religious Leaders living with HIV-AIDS (INERELA) was also conducting a training on various issues related to HIV and AIDS for the Art of Living volunteers.

These volunteers would “travel across the length and breadth of the country to spread awareness and educate the masses on HIV-AIDS”.