Hollywood actor Richard Gere met Manmohan Singh a few days ago. Former US president Bill Clinton will be here in March. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who has already visited "incredible" India three times since 1997, might follow soon. Their common concern: AIDS. The Delhi-based Gere Foundation India Trust has spent Rs 2.22 crore to support AIDS awareness programmes in India. The minister of state for health and family welfare, P. Lakshmi, told the Lok Sabha recently that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation had committed $200 million (Rs 880 crore) over five years for the control of HIV/AIDS in India. The Clinton Foundation also has promised money, but has not specified the amount. Nothing surprising, considering met Prime Ministerthat India has 51 lakh people with HIV, according to the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO). But there has always been a sneaking suspicion that the AIDS ambassadors' have a hidden agenda in pinning the red ribbon. There is talk, at least in hushed tones, of a plan to get western pharmaceutical companies an easy entry into the sizeable Indian market. NACO Director-General Dr S.Y. Quraishi says it is unfair to suspect the "good intentions" of the western ambassadors. "They are crucial players in the war against AIDS. What motive could there be?" he asks. "In India, we have cheap medicines. And we have the potential to export them." But there is controversy whenever the ambassadors come to India. "They send wrong signals to the community with their propaganda," says Pune-based D.S. Rawat, who heads the Association of People Living with HIV. "The government does not deny their statements because it serves its purpose to get grants from the World Bank on the basis of inflated figures." The government has reacted, but only in spurts. In 2002, then health minister Shatrughan Sinha accused Gates of "spreading panic" when he endorsed a report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies that 20 to 25 million Indians were likely to have HIV by 2010. Last October, Dr Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, described that India was "on an African trajectory" with regard to HIV/AIDS. J.V.R. Prasada Rao, then health secretary, replied that it was not right. UNAIDS country representative Dr Kenneth Wind-Anderson agrees that AIDS ambassadors exaggerate figures. "One should ask them what is the basis (of quoting such figures)," he says, adding that India is not headed the African way for two reasons: Indians are more educated and has a good communication system. Since 1997, there have been random statements issued by experts, NGOs and various Indian and foreign officials on India's AIDS figures, says Purushothaman Mulloli, general convener of Joint Action Council Kannur (JACK). In 1997, UNAIDS said AIDS deaths in India totalled 1.4 lakh, but NACO put its cumulative AIDS cases at 5,204. In 1999, UNAIDS put AIDS deaths at 3.1 lakh. NACO put the cases at 8,220. But what shocked everyone was a parliamentary standing committee report in December 1998 which said there were 81.3 lakh existing HIV/ AIDS cases in India. In September 1999, a figure of 85 lakh HIV/AIDS cases in India was quoted in the UN General Assembly. Embarrassed, NACO brushed it aside as a "typing mistake" and came out with a fresh report in 1999. But according to Mulloli, NACO statistics for 1996, 1998 and 1999 in some states have remained the same. Rawat explains why the figures are inflated. A person who is HIV positive goes to at least three centres to confirm his tests. As he gives different names, it is as if three people were found to be HIV positive. The prevalence of HIV in the country is measured by data from sentinel sites. Rawat thinks most NGOs are making money in the name of AIDS. In fact, NACO, which supports 1,188 NGOs, says that 80 per cent of them are frauds. The dubious role of NGOs came to light when one called Sahayog charged people from Uttaranchal with leading a "promiscuous lifestyle". It caused an uproar and the group's members were booked under the National Security Act. NACO, too, is not beyond blame. In its 2004 report, the Comptroller and Auditor General pulled it up for utilising only 46 per cent of the $300 million made available by the World Bank for a five-year AIDS control programme. The CAG report talks about the misuse of funds in condom promotion and improvement of STD clinics. Such clinics are the key in providing statistics for sentinel surveillance. Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss says the ministry is re-assessing the surveillance by an "independent global agency". Global tenders have already been called from been called from experienced agencies to complete the study in six months. But Mulloli says it is proof of the 'western ambassadors' having succeeded in creating a fear psychosis that the government now wants a global agency to do a surveillance survey. Encouraged by Ramadoss, NACO has planned a Rs 30 crore-awareness campaign. This will have Bollywood and cricket stars talk about AIDS. This will also include launching of four Express trains