It is estimated that there are more than 5.1 million Indians currently living with HIV. India’s highly heterogeneous epidemic is largely concentrated in seven states with over one percent antenatal prevalence. Although some states appear to be experiencing stabilization in HIV incidence; prevalence is increasing in at-risk populations in other states. The Indian epidemic continues to be concentrated in populations showing high risk behavior characterized by unprotected sexual intercourse with multiple partners, anal sex, and injecting drug use with shared needles. Some high risk groups show very high prevalence of HIV infection, and sexual networks are wide and inter-digitating. The low rate of multiple partner concurrent sexual relationships among the wider community seem to have, so far, protected the larger body of people with 99 percent of the adult Indian population being HIV negative. This situation is sought to be protected at all costs, as experience in other parts of the world has shown the potentially devastating impact of an HIV/AIDS epidemic on individuals and countries alike. The mode of transmission of the epidemic leads to a clustering of HIV infection and AIDS cases in turn. With an epidemic of a chronic infection that has now entered its 20th year, India is also discovering the visible ‘face’ of the epidemic: that of a growing number of people living with HIV and AIDS.