Former US president Bill Clinton told India, which has the world's second largest number of reported people with HIV/AIDS, that it has no time to waste in combating the disease.

Clinton, who has used his celebrity clout to become a global anti-AIDS campaigner, welcomed new Indian health ministry figures suggesting a sharp slowdown in HIV infection rates in the country of over one billion people.

But speaking at a national business conference, Clinton -- whose Arkansas-based William J. Clinton Foundation, has struck deals with drug firms to buy costly AIDS drugs and distribute them in Africa, India and elsewhere -- said the numbers were no reason for complacency.

African nations, which had India's HIV infection rate of less than one percent of their population a decade ago, were grappling with HIV/AIDS epidemics of "unimaginable proportions", he said.

India's official HIV infection rate is 0.91 percent of the population.

"If India acts now," it can save itself from going down that road, he said.

"You have come too far, worked too hard" to follow another course, he said, referring to India's emerging economic status.

Clinton painted a grim picture for business leaders if India did not succeed in containing HIV infections, pointing to examples in Africa where companies employ and train two workers for each job, knowing that at least one will die.

He noted that now in the tiny southern African nation of Botswana which about a decade ago had a small HIV problem "over 30 percent of its adult population is HIV positive."

The Indian Health Ministry figures Wednesday said only 28,000 people had been infected by the virus in 2004, compared to 520,000 the previous year, taking the total number of people reported to be HIV positive to 5.13 million.

That would put India slightly behind South Africa where 5.3 million are reported infected.

However, Indian AIDS activists have dismissed the government figures that the growth rate of new HIV infections had contracted by 95 percent.

"If these figures were true, this is the biggest miracle of this century," said K. Narayan, trustee of the AIDS Control and Community Education Programme Trust in the southern city of Chennai, formerly Madras.

"This drastic decrease is a methodological flaw."

AIDS campaigners say there is massive under-reporting of HIV infections in India due to the social stigma facing sufferers, lack of available treatment and ignorance about the illness.

India's health ministry has not explained the huge drop but said the study was done according to the guidelines of the World Health Organisation.

The ministry's figures contradict statements last month by Richard Feachem, head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, that India had outstripped South Africa in the number of people with HIV.

Feachem did not put a figure on the number of HIV-affected people but said he and a number of other experts believed India had overtaken South Africa.

Clinton, who arrived Wednesday in New Delhi, was due to later to travel to India's tsunami-ravaged southern coastline as a UN special envoy. On Friday, he heads for tsunami-hit areas in Sri Lanka and then leaves for the Maldives and Indonesia.

First came Madonna's steamy smooch with Britney Spears, then Janet Jackson ignited fury by baring a breast -- now new battlelines are being drawn up in America's culture wars -- over TV condom ads.

"Condoms are the line in the sand," said Randy Sharp of the American Family Association (AFA), which is behind a mass e-mail campaign to safeguard one of television's last taboos.

Sickened by an on-screen barrage of sexy images and impotence drug commercials, 'family values' activists leapt into action following reports a major condom manufacturer was eyeing prime-time advertising slots.

Previous complaints targeted saucy dramas like "Desperate Housewives," Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" during the 2004 Super Bowl and risque advertising by the likes of Paris Hilton, at the center of a new storm Wednesday over a racy spot for a burger chain.

Campaigners are flexing muscles, which the pundits say, helped send George W. Bush back to the White House last year on a tide of moral outrage.

"We believe the networks don't care about the viewer any more by virtue of them getting seedier and seedier in the content they broadcast," Sharp told AFP in a telephone interview from his Tupelo, Mississippi office.

AFA deluged networks with 200,000 e-mails from parents and is now pressuring members of Congress to keep condom adverts off network television.

"We oppose condom ads because they promote promiscuity," said Sharp.

"The American Family Association has always leaned toward traditional family values that sex should be kept within the marriage bed."

Some TV stations, especially on cable, permit some limited condom advertising, but only late at night when children are presumed to be asleep. Condoms adverts do often appear in magazines which appeal to young adults.

Family planning groups argue such ads could help reduce teen pregnancies and check the spread of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV/AIDS.

Michael McGee, vice president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said : "the more we can normalize conversations about healthy sexuality and safer sex, the better off we are as a society."

While condom manufacturers should recognize decency standards, it would be wrong to confine advertising to a purely public health style message, he said.

"I do think it is appropriate to have messages in the family hour as long as it is with the recognition of who's watching and its appropriate."

"If they can use sexy images to sell sneakers and soft drinks, it certainly makes sense for them to use that when they are selling condoms," McGee said.

The latest furore was sparked by reports in the advertising trade press, and the New York Post that speciality products firm Church and Dwight, wanted to place ads for its "Trojan" brand on network television.

NBC is considering the request, a spokeswoman said, stressing the proposed campaign highlighted the health benefits of using condoms, and did not resort to titillation.

CBS said the network did not have a policy on condom ads, and that any such spots were considered on an individual basis. Fox executives declined to comment on contacts with clients, and ABC could not be reached for comment.

Church and Dwight did not respond to calls.

Rising debate over television decency has been fanned by a string of incidents over the last two years.

In 2003, pop diva Madonna gave proteges Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera an open mouth kiss at the MTV music awards.

Then came Jackson's wardrobe malfunction, and this year an advert during an NFL football game showed a star of "Desperate Housewives" from behind as she dropped a towel in front of a player in a dressing room.

U2 star Bono, narrowly escaped a mouthwash from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for using the F-word during the Golden Globes awards, while another storm surrounded supposed homosexual imagery in shows featuring animated children's character SpongeBob SquarePants.

Late last year, 60 ABC stations pulled a showing of Steven Spielburg's epic "Saving Private Ryan" worried that the use of swear words by actors playing wounded D-Day soldiers could fall foul of FCC language rules.

A third Malaysian state has announced plans to introduce compulsory HIV tests for Muslim couples who want to get married in an effort to fight the increasing incidence of AIDS, local media reported.

Northern Kelantan state Islamic development and propagation committee chairman Hassan Mohamood said if one or both partners were found to be infected they would receive counselling but would not be barred from marrying.

"It is then up to them to decide of they still want to proceed with their marriage," Hassan was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.

Kelantan, where more than 900 people were reportedly infected with the virus last year, joins two of Malaysia's 13 states -- Johor and Perlis -- which already insist on compulsory testing ahead of marriage.

The latest official statistics show that 58,012 HIV cases had been reported in the country by the end of 2003, Health Minister Chua Soi Lek has said. A total of 6,545 of them have died.

Vigorous public debate has surfaced recently about HIV sufferers. In April, a Perak state mufti angered human rights activists by suggesting people infected with the virus should be isolated on an island to prevent spread of the disease.

AIDS activists say a lack of education about the virus, plus deep-rooted reticence about discussing sex and a reluctance to admit the existence of a problem are obstacles to Malaysia's fight against HIV/AIDS.

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