Richard Gere, Lionel Richie Partner To Create Song for Indian Idol Finale To Raise HIV/AIDS Awareness

Actor and AIDS advocate Richard Gere and singer Lionel Richie have partnered to create a song to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in India, the AFP/Yahoo! News reports. Gere -- while attending a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland -- agreed with the producers of Indian Idol to feature a song about HIV/AIDS during the show's finale. Gere said he and the show's producers were having trouble finding a song they liked when Richie said he had written one. "He started to sing it to me. The hairs on the back of my neck flipped up," Gere said, adding, "It was the perfect song, anthemic." Richie's song, titled "One World," is scheduled to be performed by the contestants during Indian Idol's final show later this month (AFP/Yahoo! News, 1/29). Indian media executives last month during the country's first Media Leaders Summit on HIV/AIDS -- which was convened by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Heroes Project, co-founded by Gere, in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Avahan Initiative -- announced the launch of a massive public education campaign to raise awareness about the country's growing HIV/AIDS epidemic (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 1/6).