At breakfast in Bangalore this morning, I was greeted by news of Bollywood’s first on-screen gay kiss. When they’re puckerd up like this, wouldn’t you want to? But the Indian censors may not share my enthusiasm. I am Omar will be screening at the Rotterdam film festival. Check it out and see if the kiss is in.

The HIV concession brings Indian Railways’ list of socially-motivated discounts to 50. Some of my favourites are ” Either of parents accompanying the Child Recipients of National Bravery Award – travelling for any purpose” (50% off) and “Persons taking part in Mountaineering Expeditions organised by IMF” (75% off). Since I’ve been exposed to all those Big Pharma ads in which good-looking muscle-bound guys pop their antiretrovirals before climbing a glacier and abseiling down it, I’m wondering: Do HIV-positive mountaineers get a double-discount?

Seriously, I think this is good news for three reasons. Firstly, it may actually make it easier for people to get their treatment. Secondly, it is an indication that the appalling miasma of stigma that hangs over HIV in India may be thinning. And thirdly, it is an example of a “multi-sectoral response” that is actually useful. The fashion for trying to make HIV everyone’s business is often counterproductive. In most of the world we really don’t need oil companies holding concerts on World AIDS Day, or HIV task forces in the Ministry of Fisheries. We do need people who need sterile needles, condoms and treatment for sexually transmitted infections to be able to get them, cheaply and easily. Ditto people who need antiretorvirals. If Indian Railways initiative helps achieve that, bravo.

The Crezendo condom vibrates through a battery operated ring at its open end. This, say manufacturers, enhances both pleasure and sales, and therefore makes it an effective tool against both pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. This, say scandalised opponents, makes it a sex toy, which are banned in India.

The idea that sex should be fun — though firmly held by Asoka Ratwatte who brought this wonderful product to my attention — is apparently not yet universal.

Let’s be clear — the lower figures in India are the result of better data, not good prevention programmes. They represent a triumph of surveillance and spreadsheets, not a triumph of clean needles and condoms. Essentially, India has been looking for its epidemic in all the wrong places. Against the advice of just about everybody, including some of its own top public health officials, the Indian government has for years stuck stubbornly to an HIV surveillance system which is entirely inappropriate to its epidemic. It has been measuring infection rates in pregnant women and STI patients rather than in the sub-populations most likely to be infected: drug injectors, sex workers, their clients, and men who have anal sex with one another.

It has taken a hugely expensive survey of over 102,000 households to get closer to the truth. What the Dandona’s don’t mention is that the bare bones of a more sensible surveillance system focusing on high risk populations has been built up over the past two years by the Avahan project, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This has provided a much more detailed picture than was previously available of levels of HIV infection and risk behaviour in those most likely to be exposed to the virus, but it only covers a handful of states. India would do well to expand these efforts. This would allow the country to keep better track of its epidemic, and, most importantly of all, to do a better job of providing HIV prevention services to the people who need them most, rather than scattering its efforts across populations who were never at any great risk of infection in the first place.