High-flier leads AIDS crusade in India for Bill Gates

DHARMAPURI, India (AFP) — Smiling and hands pressed together in greeting, Ashok Alexander sits cross-legged under the tent-covered roof of a house before dozens of women to talk about sex.

That's a big change for the former highly-paid McKinsey et Co. director used to restructuring steel companies.

He quit that job in 2003 to run a five-year 200 million dollar fund called Avahan (duty call), the India AIDS initiative of the Seattle-based Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The meeting is one of seven in two days with sex workers across southern Indian areas with the highest rates of HIV infection.

Alexander, 50, isn't squeamish, hugging eunuchs and listening to stories of poverty, rape, beatings and extortion.

It's all part of a crusade to increase condom use and cut sexually transmitted and HIV infections in six high-risk Indian states.

At least five ...