Manipur's 2.4 million population grapples with an HIV/AIDS epidemic that stems from heroin addiction directly related to poppy cultivation in the area. It can take two days for people to reach a government hospital for treatment and more time and money to access the ART centre in Imphal. Underdevelopment and decades-old insurgency compound the problem, reports Dilnaz Boga

Lila was persuaded to elope with her boyfriend before marriage, a common practice in Manipur. However, when she tested HIV-positive, she was abandoned by her lover and now faces the twin stigma of being a rejected bride and HIV-positive writes Anjulika Thingnam

A surgeon who contracted HIV in the course of his work 14 years ago describes his journey from despair to positive action: he now treats people with HIV and has founded an organisation for positive people

General secretary of the Manipur Network of Positive People Sorokhaibam Thoibi Devi has individually approached and coaxed 230 HIV-positive women in Thoubal town to declare their positive status, join the network, and learn to re-live their lives. Anjulika Thingnam Samom tells her story

Twenty-year-old Ibungo cannot tell his parents or his partners that he has HIV because in Manipur, as in the rest of India, men who have sex with men are liable to be clapped up in jail. He speaks to Anjulika Thingnam

Akshara (8) and Ananthu (6) have been boycotted at school and in their village of Kodiyoor in Kerala because they are HIV-positive. Following pressure from several quarters, they have now been allotted a separate room at school in which to study, and a new teacher. But the fear born out of ignorance has not  gone away, reports Max Martin

Women in Karnataka talk to Max Martin about the stigma and discrimination they face because of their HIV-positive status

People with HIV/AIDS in Orissa are ostracised and mistreated by their families, community and the medical fraternity. These conditions have prompted the formation of Orissa's first registered association of people living with AIDS, the Kalinga Positive People's Association. Elisa Patnaik narrates some of their heartrending stories

Jahnabi Goswami is the first woman in the northeast to declare her HIV status. She has lived with HIV -- and the accompanying discrimination -- for ten years. In 2002 she set up the Assam Network of Positive People to build the capacities of people living with the virus. "Until my last breath, I will continue my awareness campaign," she tells Nava Thakuria

Yesu Babu of Vambay Colony in Vijayawada is 12. He has lost both his parents to AIDS. His younger brother is positive. There are almost 2 million AIDS orphans like him in India. But the national and global response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in India has virtually ignored children, reports Shelley Seale