The National AIDS Control Organisation may be worried about controversy over Kushboo's comments on premarital sex but Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss whose party Pattali Makkal Katchi is carrying on a campaign against the actress thinks that talking about pre-marital sex is not acceptable.
When asked to comment on his party's stand on premarital sex and the impact it may have on issues such as AIDS, he said, "There is nothing wrong in talking about safe sex, but it is wrong to say that pre-marital sex is alright."
The anti-AIDS campaign also focusses on an ABC - abstinence, be faithful, use condoms - approach, he said. Interestingly, a senior National AIDS Control Organisation official on Monday had said that the controversy over Kushboo's comments on pre-marital sex worried her as it might have a negative impact on the AIDS awareness programme.
"We need to be prepared on these issues which are very central in containing HIV/AIDS," Sujata Rao, new project director at the NACO had said citing surveys which show that one in five men have extra-marital sex while only 25 per cent of them use condoms, and 30 per cent of youth have experimented with pre-marital sex. The United Progressive Alliance government had also announced a shift in AIDS control strategy from focusing on ABC approach to aggressively promoting condoms in 2004.
