HUNDREDS of gay rights activists paraded through New Delhi yesterday, highlighting the continuing discrimination suffered by India’s LGBT community and demanding the repeal of a law criminalising homosexual activity.

As they marched to the beat of drums, some participants in the annual gay pride parade said that much had changed in recent years and people were starting to accept them.

Others, however, said India’s right-wing Hindu-supremacist government was against recognition of the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

Activists were encouraged in 2009 when colonial-era legislation criminalising homosexual acts was declared unconstitutional by the New Delhi High Court.

But the judgement was overturned four years later when India’s Supreme Court decided that amending or repealing the law should be left to parliament, rather than the judiciary.

The law makes same-gender sexual acts punishable by up to 10 years in prison.