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‍‍‍How 'Female Egg Donors' Dupe IVF Clinics In 'Fertility Fraud' To Make Some Big And Quick Bucks?

Despite the stringent laws and absence of any regulatory authority, thousands of fertility clinics have mushroomed in the country over a period of time.

With infertility rising among couples in India, fertility clinics have become a booming business. Reports say that out of 10 lakh annual In-Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) cases in the world, 2.5 lakh, which is 25 per cent of the global share, take place only in India.

In the absence of any regulatory authority, thousands of fertility clinics have mushroomed in the country over a period of time. There is no monitoring mechanism in place on their quality of services and treatment which makes stakeholders, especially couples, vulnerable to various types of fraud.
One such fraud is committed by female egg donors where they hide their personal details, religion, and donation status to cheat fertility clinics.  

IVF is a medical procedure in which a female egg and a male sperm are fertilised in a petri dish or outside the female body. After fertilization, it is placed in the female’s womb to grow as a fetus as in the case of a normal pregnancy. 

Couples, where one of the two are infertile due to various reasons, opt for IVF clinics that arrange either female eggs or male sperm depending on the need in the case.    

“If in a couple, the female partner is not able to produce enough or healthy quality eggs, we need female egg donors and if the male is unable to produce good quality sperm, we look for male donors,” Dr Suparna Banerjee, Clinical Director of Ankur Fertility Clinic, Kolkata and Institute of Reproductive Solution, Uttarpara.

“There is always a high demand for female egg donors, especially, in tier II and tier III cities. This is because while a male can give millions of sperms with natural stimulation, females are administered hormonal injections for 10 to 12 days so that they can produce some 10 to 20 eggs,” Dr Banerjee said.
Fertility experts say that a female’s egg quality deteriorates with each donation and good clinics don’t entertain a female donor more than three to four times.

“Though so far as I know, in many developed countries one female donor can donate eggs six times,” Dr Banerjee said.
Also, only healthy young females below the age of 30 years are considered good candidates for egg donation. These issues are governed by guidelines issued by the Indian Council of Medical Research as there is no law that regulates IVF procedures in India.

All these factors restrict female donors from egg donation and force them to resort to deceiving tactics. Fertility clinics say that female donors hide their age, religion, times they have donated eggs in the past, and their health status.

“While performing health check-ups we catch them red-handed. Like ultrasound can give us an idea of the history of their egg donations in the past but sometimes they can manage to get away with it,” Dr Saurav Prakash Maity, Gynaecologist and Fertility expert, Rashmika Fertility, Kolkata, said.
Dr Maity added, “We can catch them only when we retrieve poor quality eggs from them. 

These experts say that there is no centralised data of donors in India and each clinic maintains its own records. So clinics cannot crosscheck and donors exploit the situation.

“They even manipulate their age and name by getting fake government IDs like Aadhar Card or Driving license issued. Just recently I caught a lady who came with a different Aadhar card with a different name,” a fertility clinic owner in Delhi said requesting anonymity.  

Dr P Agarwal, MD, Sanjivani Test Tube Baby Centre, Sambalpur, Odisha said, “In places like Odisha where infertility among couples is a big issue, we always face a shortage of female donors and we have to depend on states like Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Mumbai.”
  
Fertility experts say that a female donor earns between Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 for each donation and normally those who are in need of money come forward for that.    
Experts have differences of opinion on the question of payment as many feel that they are well-compensated while some call it exploitation by the hands of fertility clinics which force women to go for multiple donations and commit fraud. Some experts also say that since there is no regulator, IVF clinics also try and exploit these helpless women by sometimes paying them as minimum as possible. 

The government is in the process of bringing legislation and the current Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Bill is being deliberated upon among stakeholders. Interestingly, the bill says that a woman cannot donate eggs more than once in her lifetime. 
Fertility experts say that this will not only create a huge shortage of donors but increase many types of frauds as well.

“Unless the government maintains a national database of all the donors and gives its access to all the IVF clinics, it is impossible to ensure one donation per female donor in India. It will increase a huge shortage of donors and couples have to pay more also,” the Delhi-based fertility clinics quoted above said. #KhabarLive #hydnews

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How Akhila became Hadiya – and why her case has reached the Supreme Court?

A young woman adopted Islam, defying her Hindu family. The case has roiled Kerala.

It is called Devi Krupa – the blessings of the goddess. But inside the modest single-storeyed house in TV Puram village in Kerala’s Kottayam district, a young woman has been confined against her wishes, on the orders of Kerala High Court. Outside the house, six policemen stand guard round-the-clock.

Oppressive personal laws aren’t the only thing standing between Muslim women and happy lives

The nation cannot swoop in to save the Muslim woman while Muslim communities are simultaneously being brought to their knees.

I am glad it is over. I refer to talaq-e-bidat, the practice of Muslim men uttering talaq, talaq, talaq in a single setting to instantly divorce their wives, which rightfully belonged in a trash can, but also to the television nation’s delirious excitement at having “saved Muslim women”.

In A Historic Verdict, Supreme Court Strikes Down Triple Talaq

For many women in India, the Supreme Court stood on the right side of history today after it struck down the practice of instant divorce called triple talaq, practiced by Sunni Muslims in the country.

In a 3-2 judgment, Justices Kurian Joseph, RF Nariman and UU Lalit struck down the practice of instant divorce, describing it as "illegal and sinful" and ruling that it violates the right to equality enshrined in the Indian constitution.

We Need A New ‘Quit India’ Movement For True Independence'

My father went to jail in the 1942 Quit India movement. He was interned for 2.5 years in Delhi and Lucknow jails and was released in 1946.

I often used to ask him whether he and thousands of Indians like him who sacrificed so much for India's independence ever thought that it would become such a chaotic and corrupt country.

In A Country Enamoured By Performance Patriotism, Trying To Prove A Point By Chanting 'Bharat MataKi Jai' Is Only Expected

Facts and figures take a back seat as patriotic fervour reigns supreme.

The courtroom is not a television studio.

That's what a judge had to tell a government lawyer in court. Kashmiri separatist Shabbir Shah is on trial in a money-laundering case. He has been arrested by the Enforcement Directorate after a hawala operator said most of the money seized from him came from Shah.

Speciasl Report: Inside The Surreal Battle For Mind Control Playing Out In Rajasthan's Classrooms

From history to politics to math, text books are throwing caution to the wind, as teachers grow divided.

For someone who is courageously speaking truth to power, 51-year-old Mahavir Sihag is exceedingly soft spoken. On occasion, you have to remind him to speak louder, so that you can hear.

The Journey of the Hijab – From the Afghan Burqa to Fashion Magazines

How did this versatile piece of fabric get so controversial?

July 12 is National Hijab Day in Iran, a celebration that has been met by defiant protests by women driving headscarfless in their cars.

At the same time, the American glossy Allure has featured, for the first time, a hijab-wearing model on its cover. The Somali stunner Hamali Aden demonstrates just how beautiful and fashion-forward Islamic style can be.

Book Review: How a journalist’s journey to being a secular Muslim in India began at home and in school

Seema Mustafa reveals her first encounters with the need for secularism.

It was the History period for Class IV in the Convent of Jesus and Mary in New Delhi. The topic was the history of Islam. Not a particularly interested student at the best of times, I was delighted to find that I knew something that perhaps others did not and so jumped up to narrate a story about Abraham – except that I had confused him for Prophet Mohammad.

So, according to my version, Mohammad was against idol worship, and spent a great deal of time trying to convince idol worshippers to stop the practice. One day when the elders all left for work, he cut off the limbs of the idols and left an axe near the largest idol.

‘Maybe It Is Time To Change My Son’s Name’: The New Reality Of Being Muslim In India

Rumours, lies, violence and political support for bigotry embolden many Hindus to reveal hidden prejudices.

Saira does not call her son by his name when they are out of the house. “I prefer using J, it doesn’t have a Muslim ring to it,” said Saira, 40, a former colleague whose first name I have changed on her request and whose Muslim identity was never previously a point of discussion. “I cringe as I say this, but it is true.”

Whenever J asked his mother the difference between him and his friends, she always told him there was none. They were all Indian with different names, she said. That explanation, an evidently troubled Saira told me, is weakening at a time of uncommon anti-Muslim prejudice and violence.

In-Depth Ground Report: How A Facebook Post Broke The Communal Peace Of A West Bengal Town?

While the violence was low scale compared to riots in other parts of the country, it has scarred the Basirhat area.

Maulana Yasin Mondal speaks slowly, his voice heavy with dismay. “I have never seen anything like this,” Mondal said. “Hindu-Muslim [tension] is unknown in Magurkhali [in the Basirhat sub-division]. We are still in shock.”

Mondal is the imam of Milan Masjid, a mosque which stands opposite the house of the Class 11 student who had been accused of posting the explicit cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad on social media that triggered the first large-scale communal trouble in the area in living memory. From July 2, the Basirhat sub-division of North 24 Parganas district in West Bengal was in the grip of violence that lasted for close to a week and claimed one life.

Islamic Style: How The Hijab Has Grown Into Fashion Industry?

Muslim spending on fashion is expected to touch $488 billion by 2019.

Nike, the well-known US sportswear company, recently introduced a sports hijab. The reaction to this was mixed: there are those who are applauding Nike for its inclusiveness of Muslim women who want to cover their hair, and there are those who accuse it of abetting women’s subjugation.

The Spirit Of India: Sikhs And Hindus In A Punjab Village Joined Hands To Build A Mosque Ahead Of Ramzan

In a shining instance of communal harmony and the spirit of brotherhood, members of the Sikh and Hindu communities came together to build a mosque for their Muslim brethren in a village in Punjab.

A report mentioned that in the village of Ghalib Ran Singh Waal, which is dominated by Sikhs and Hindus, a mosque was inaugurated just as the month of Ramzan is going to begin. Earlier, the Muslim community had to visit nearby villages for their namaaz

.

The report quoted Liaqat Ali, a resident of the village, as saying that their long cherished demand has been fulfilled and that the beautiful Hazrat Abu Bakar mosque is an Eid gift for them.

The Muslim Law Board has proposed a social boycott of men who use triple talaq – but is this legal?

The Supreme Court in 1962 struck down a law banning excommunications. But Maharashtra criminalised social boycotts last year.

The Supreme Court is expected to pronounce its verdict on the constitutional validity of triple talaq soon, having concluded hearings in the case on Thursday. The All India Muslim Personal Law Board – an NGO that claims to represent India’s Muslims – is doing all it can to convince the court not to ban the practice.

Will Superstar Rajinikanth finally enter politics?

His failure to live up to the expectations he often builds up has made such speculation a sort of amusement.

“Naa eppo varuven eppadi varuven nu yarukum theriyathu
aana varavendiya tithula correct ah varuven”
(No one knows when and how I will enter. But I will enter at the right time)

This was Rajinikanth’s legendary punchline in the 1995 blockbuster Muthu.

The big question: Is yoga for power or fitness, wisdom or devotion?

Today, any understanding of yoga is often obscured by a grand media war to dominate the discourse on yoga.

They say Jesus could walk on water, and turn water into wine. Many have postulated that he was a yogi, with siddha powers. That he must have learned it in a Hindu or Buddhist monastery in India during his missing years. This yoga-of-power is very different from the popular, and sanitised, yoga-for-fitness of the global village, or the yoga-for-devotion of the religious and the spiritual.

Why do we insist on calling India a vegetarian country when two-thirds of us eat meat?

Nowhere but in India is eating meat considered a deviance.

In India it is routine to hear “Nice party. They served non-veg” and “Are you veg or non-veg?” We see that the expression “non-veg” does duty both as noun and as adjective. In the former role it can stand for flesh, fish or fowl – the sole essential being that whatever it may be, it is not “veg”. In the UK, incidentally, “veg” means not vegetarian but vegetable, as in the typical meal of “steak, potatoes and two veg”. In the late 1970s, it used to give my English girlfriend much pleasure to hear people in India call themselves vegetables: “She did look like an aubergine, you know.”

In the Hindu-CNN-IBN State of the Nation Survey of August 2006, Yogendra Yadav and Sanjay Kumar spoke of India's food habits. “The findings [of the survey] show that only 31% of Indians are vegetarians,” they wrote. “The figure is 21% for families (with all vegetarian members).” This is in the present. Historians have shown that the people of ancient India, beginning with Brahmins, ate many kinds of meat, including that of cattle.

Therefore, to call India a vegetarian country when over two-thirds of Indians eat meat is imbecility. Yet vegetarianism is assumed to be the norm, encouraged or imposed by the ideologies of religion and caste.

Reprehensible deviance
The prefix “non-” is used to indicate negation or absence. Thus there are words like “non-combatant” and “nonsense”. It may also be used to mark a negative quality or a deviation from a norm, as in “non-attractive”. In a land of Hindus, a “non-Hindu” is a deviant. In our country, because vegetarianism is wrongly assumed to be the norm, those who eat meat are called “non-vegetarians”. The expression often has a negative connotation: the eating of meat may be seen as a reprehensible act.

Vegetarianism is known all over the world, but it is considered a harmless eccentricity. Humans in nearly the entire world eat the flesh of mammals and birds and fishes. We are, as a species, omnivores, never mind all the ersatz Vedic humbug that flies around in Bharat.

It is only in our India that the expression “non-vegetarian” is found. Indians who go abroad get blank stares when they utter it. No one anywhere says “non-meat-eater” or “non-carnivore”, which would be a good deal more logical.

A meat-eating family living in Ahmedabad in a housing society owned by Jains recently got 40 letters threatening the rape of their daughter as punishment for their “criminal” food habits. Can you imagine a sattvik pujari living in Birmingham facing a death threat for his food choices: “You eat kaddu, Panditji – you die”?

Accidents - Law for Bystanders

I saw an accident take place. What should I do?

There is no legal duty to do anything, but as a good citizen you can do the following:

Rush the victim to the hospital or call an ambulance (108).

Inform the police about the accident. The police cannot demand a written statement from you without your consent, as per the newly enforced Good Samaritan guidelines.

Lodge an FIR at the nearest police station.

Won’t I get into a lot of legal hassle if I get involved?

The Supreme Court has approved guidelines issued by the Centre for protection of ‘Good Samaritans’ at the hands of police or any other authority.

Under these guidelines:

The Good Samaritan will be treated respectfully and without any discrimination on the grounds of gender, religion, nationality and caste.

Any individual, except an eyewitness, who calls the police to inform them of an accidental injury or death need not reveal his or her personal details such as full name, address or phone number.

The police will not compel the Good Samaritan to disclose his or her name, identity, address and other such details in the police record form or log register.

The police will not force any Good Samaritan in procuring information or anything else.

The police will allow the Good Samaritan to leave after having provided the information available to him or her, and no further questions will be asked of him or her if he or she does not desire to be a witness.

Now I have become a witness in a motor accident case. What rights do I have?

According to the same guidelines:

If a Good Samaritan chooses to be a witness, s/he will be examined with utmost care and respect.

The examination will be conducted at a time and place of the Good Samaritan’s convenience and the investigation officer will be dressed in plain clothes.

If the Good Samaritan is required by the investigation officer to visit the police station, the reasons for the requirement shall be recorded by the officer in writing.

In a police station, the Good Samaritan will be examined in a single examination in a reasonable and time-bound manner, without causing any undue delay.

If a Good Samaritan declares himself to be an eyewitness, s/he will be allowed to give evidence in the form of an affidavit.