Hunger, lack of drugs, discrimination - those are realities that many of India's millions of HIV-positive people face day after day, month after month, in a country that now has the most infected people in the world.

Last Sunday was International Candlelight Memorial Day, and activists gathered in eight Indian cities to mourn those killed by AIDS - 25 million and counting, 8,000 every day. All across the country, it's the poor and marginalised who are most vulnerable to the ravages of the disease.

In the backrooms of boom-town Bangalore, capital of the state of Karnataka where AIDS rates are high, HIV-positive people are wasting away for simple lack of nutrition. The Indian economy might be roaring ahead, but hunger is reducing many of the state's infected poor to mere shadows of themselves. Stigma and discrimination push them further into destitution.

Janakamma, an HIV-positive widow from Bangalore's hinterland, has supported herself, her two children and her mother on the women's combined monthly pensions of 400 rupees ($10) since her brothers threw her out of the house following her diagnosis. "My brother said, 'If you stay in our home, HIV will spread to my wife and children,'" she said.

Janakamma "eats" once a day - one or two glasses of hot rice water. "I take ART (anti-retroviral therapy) without food, then comes vomiting, headache, dizziness, weakness, stomach pains, joint pain, fever," she said.

The toxic medicines affected her body even more when she worked, earning 30 rupees (75 cents) a day for hard manual labour - so she stopped working. But just catching the bus to a medical centre 150 kilometres (93 miles) away to collect the government-provided drugs drains her energy - and her purse.

What does she want the government to do? "To pay for a home, and good food for my children and me, and travelling expenses. That's all."

India produces the bulk of the world's generic AIDS drugs but only 7 percent of the country's HIV-positive people get free treatment, according to charity ActionAid, which placed the country in the top rung of its global AIDS "league of shame" published this week.

Also, only select medical centres provide the drugs - provided they have them at all. "Even if ART is given for free, people have to spend lots of money on travel since the centres are far in between," said ActionAid's Manish Kumar.

Fear and stigma

Meanwhile, most of India's HIV-positive people have yet to get tested. "They don't know their status, or they are afraid, or they don't see enough facilities for them where they can find out if they are HIV-positive," Kumar said. "People often get kicked out of their jobs once their status is known."

The fear of stigma pushes people into secrecy or denial. MN Balakrishnan, a male sex worker from Bangalore, got the cold shoulder from friends and care workers before finding a new life at an organisation for HIV-positive people. "My friends didn't come near me. Doctors wouldn't treat me and said they didn't want to feel my pulse," he said.

Renuka, a young and confident HIV-positive woman from Karnatakan village, was twice pushed to the brink of suicide because of discrimination by family, neighbours and doctors.

"When my husband died of AIDS, the doctor told everybody - the news spread through the village," she said. "My mother-in-law said: 'You married my son. His death is your fault.'"

Visitors also stopped coming to the small hotel she ran and her funds dried up. She's not on ART. "I work with the AIDS organisation Abhaya now. I'm in good health. I spend my money on nutritious food."

The threat of hunger and ostracism seems to loom larger over many Indians living with HIV than the lack of medicines.

Knowledge about AIDS could help end stigma, but Karnataka has joined a swathe of Indian states that have banned or refused sex education in schools, citing Indian cultural sensibilities.

"If there is no sex education, we can't beat HIV," said an exasperated Sangamesh Chour, director of a Bangalore-based NGO that assists truck drivers and sex workers.

Meanwhile, a global cash crunch is hitting treatment efforts. ActionAid is calling on Group of Seven rich countries to triple their spending to fill a funding gap of more than $8 billion a year.

On International Candlelight Memorial Day, a slapstick AIDS-awareness theatre show held in Bangalore's Cubbon Park came to an abrupt halt at sunset. As the troupe of comedians, street musicians and magicians put away their props and instruments, white candles started appearing as if from nowhere. Soon everybody was holding one. People fell silent and the first match was lit.

The park corner took on a warm glow as activists, relatives and friends paid tribute to those killed by AIDS. Handmade banners - a patchwork of the names of dead loved ones scribbled in Hindi, Kannada and English - fluttered in the breeze.

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