Microsoft chairman Bill Gates’ third visit to this country promises to leave a lasting impact. Earlier, Gates came to India solely as an entrepreneur in search of greener pastures. In 2000, for instance, facing crisis at home due to the Democratic Party’s wrath given his pro-Republican stance, and Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s ruling slicing Microsoft into two, Gates had come to hardsell his latest innovation, the Microsoft.Net (DotNET) and the Windows Millennium (Windows Me). Additionally, he wanted to ally with innovative local software business groups such as Infosys. Today the buinessman comes visiting bearing a broader vision — to check the further spread of AIDS in India. The $ 24 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is expected to give India a generous $ 120 million for AIDS prevention. This is almost equal to what the US government has pledged to provide this country to fight the disease. Such private philanthropy is not only unprecedented, but coming as it does in a sector which, if not urgently attended to, might wipe out an enormous section of our working population, is all the more commendable. Bill Gates deserves kudos for his initiative. It can only be hoped that it spurs the health ministry to wake up to the magnitude of the problem it has shirked or skirted so far. Although AIDS is arguably at an early stage as an epidemic in India, independent estimates point out that there are at least four million HIV positive people in this country. The numbers are already so large that it is impossible to wipe out this threat, or even contain it, by governmental initiative alone. As it fudges numbers and underplays the problem, the health ministry has abdicated its responsibility to lead the fight. Moreover, Gates’ generosity will hopefully spur Indian businessmen to awaken to their social responsibility. Taking their cue from Gates, if entrepreneurs show even a fraction of the passion they display in building mandirs and masjids in combating problems of health, education and poverty, they will have earned the nation’s gratitude. The Indian political and economic elite must acknowledge that no country can aspire to superpowerdom if half its population continues to live a life threatened by disease, illiteracy and debilitating penury. Let us accept Gates’ help with good grace and learn from it. It is past time we addressed the problem instead of bickering over whether or not it exists. Let us acknowledge that Gates has created a new window for AIDS and we must avail of it.
