INDIA:Maharashtra, the western state with possibly the largest number of HIV-positive cases in India, has banned the introduction of sex education in schools after protests from legislators who say it will corrupt young minds.
India has the world's highest number of HIV-positive cases and health activists blame a lack of sex education and awareness for the problem.
Maharashtra, whose capital is Mumbai (formerly Bombay), is the third province, after neighbouring Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, to introduce a similar embargo on sex education, with all administrations believing that it would "impact negatively on impressionable minds".
The traditionalist legislators have also opted to stop training teachers in sex education.
The ban contravenes instructions issued recently by the central human resource ministry to India's 29 states and seven federally administered regions to include sex education in their curriculums.
The directive was trigged by the exponential spread of Aids across the country where basic knowledge of sex is abysmally low.
According to UNAIDS, the UN umbrella group charged with addressing Aids, India has 5.7 million people infected with the Aids virus HIV.
With its population of 1.2 billion, however, India's Aids rate is less than 1 per cent compared with some African states.
The land of the Kama Sutra, however, still hesitates to talk about sex openly in the 21st century. Several generations of Indians have matured with either little or no knowledge of sex or a skewed outlook resulting from clandestine influences.
Many parents, despite the spiralling number of HIV infections, still hesitate to talk to their children about sex. Pupils are taught - with grave embarrassment - clinical basics such as biological changes in girls and boys and reproduction.
Many mothers still do not talk to their children about something as basic as menstruation. Last year, a survey by the Indian Association of Parliamentarians on population and development revealed that a large number of Indian MPs were ignorant about Aids, believing it can be spread by sharing food, toilets and offices.
According to the survey, 64 per cent of the MPs polled believe that sharing clothes can transmit the Aids virus, 56 per cent think sharing food and utensils spreads it, while 40 per cent believe the slightest physical contact with a co-worker carrying the virus is infectious. Another 22.8 per cent believe that using the same toilet as an infected person can pass the disease on to others.