The landfall process of the Cylonic storm Michaung has completed, the India Meteorological Department said on December 5. The Severe Cyclonic Storm crossed South Andhra Pradesh coast, close to south of Bapatla, during two hours from 12.30 p.m. to 2.30 p.m. with a maximum sustained speed of 90-100 kmph.
While making landfall, the eye of the storm was situated near Bapatla in south Andhra Pradesh coast. The landfall phenomenon lasted around three hours. Life was thrown out of gear as heavy rain and high-velocity winds lashed the coastal town and villages, uprooted trees and electric poles, and blew off advertisement hoardings.
The death toll due to torrential rains, rain-related incidents in Chennai and three neighbouring districts rose to seven, while over 61,600 people were moved to relief camps in nine districts, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said. The NDRF has deployed 29 teams to in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Puducherry to undertake relief and rescue operations.
INDIA bloc’s December 6 meeting postponed after lukewarm response from top alliance leaders
Amid reports of differences cropping up between various parties in the INDIA bloc, the alliance has decided to reschedule the meeting of party heads to the third week of December. Earlier Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had called a meeting of the INDIA bloc leaders for December 6. Instead, the 14-member coordination panel will meet at Kharge’s residence on Wednesday.
The scheduled meeting of the alliance parties was met with lukewarm response by several of the front leaders. West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee claimed that she would go ahead with her State programs as she was not aware of the meeting call. “I don’t know, I have no information so I kept a programme in North Bengal... If we had the information, we wouldn’t have scheduled those programmes. We would have definitely gone (for the meeting), but we have not received any information,” the TMC chief said on Monday.
According to Congress sources, several key Opposition leaders will not be able to attend the meeting that was earlier scheduled on Wednesday. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will not be able to come to Delhi as several areas of the State have been badly hit by Cyclone Michaung. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar will not be able to make it to the national capital owing to his illness. Similarly, West Bengal Mamata Banerjee would have given it a miss owing to a wedding in her family.
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren had informed Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge of his inability to make it for a meeting on Wednesday. “I will be busy here. I spoke to Kharge Ji yesterday, maybe a representative from our side will go,” Soren told reporters in Ranchi.
However, a coordination meeting of Parliamentary leaders of the INDIA bloc will be held at Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s residence on Wednesday. Gurdeep Singh Sappal, the Coordinator of Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge confirmed the meeting.
“A coordination meeting of Parliamentary Party leaders of India Alliance will be at 6 pm on December 6th, 2023 at the residence of Congress President Sh. Mallikarjun Kharge. Thereafter meeting of Party Presidents/ Heads of the India Alliance will be scheduled in third week of December at a date convenient to all,” Sappal said in a post on ‘X’.
Seat sharing for the Lok Sabha polls, which are just four months away, is likely to be at the top of the agenda of the meeting. The next INDIA bloc meeting would also be crucial for Congress, particularly as the party lost Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, the Hindi heartland States that send a large number of members to the Parliament.
However, the Congress could find the going tough in this meeting, with key ally Samajwadi Party having struck a belligerent tone against the Congress in the Assembly elections. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav had accused the Congress of betraying the SP by not giving it tickets to contest in a potential alliance with the Congress in MP.
‘Cash-for-kidney’ scam: Health Ministry orders probe against Apollo Hospitals
The Health Ministry’s National Organ and Tissue Transplantation Organisation (NOTTO) has initiated an inquiry into allegations of cash-for-kidney scam against Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, said sources in the Ministry on Tuesday, adding that the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO) will start looking into the matter immediately.
The inquiry has been ordered following reports by UK-based newspaper The Telegraph that alleged that this private hospital group has been involved in a racket where people from Myanmar are being enticed to sell their organs for profit.
The report notes that this multi-billion dollar company with facilities across Asia, boasts that it conducts more than 1,200 transplants a year, with wealthy patients arriving for operations from all over the world, including the UK. It adds that “young villagers from Myanmar are being flown to Apollo’s prestigious Delhi hospital and paid to donate their kidneys to rich Burmese patients”.
Meanwhile, the Indraprastha Medical Corporation Ltd (IMCL), in its statement on the report, said that the allegations made in the recent international media against IMCL are absolutely false, ill-informed, and misleading.
“All the facts were shared in detail with the concerned journalist,” the official statement said.
It added that to be clear IMCL complies with every legal and ethical requirement for the transplant procedures including all guidelines laid down by the government as well as our own extensive internal processes that exceed compliance requirements.
Additionally, it noted that IMCL requires every donor to provide Form 21 notarised by the appropriate Ministry in their country.
“This form is a certification from the foreign government that the donor and recipient are indeed related. The government appointed transplant authorisation committee at IMCL reviews documents for each case including this certification and interviews the donor and the recipient. It further re-validates the documents with the concerned embassy of the country. The patients and donors undergo several medical tests, including genetic testing. These and many more steps far exceed any compliance requirements for a transplant procedure and ensure that donor and recipient are indeed related as per applicable laws. IMCL remains committed to the highest standards of ethics and to delivering on our mission to bring the best healthcare to all,” it said.
Delhi-based Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals is a multi-specialty tertiary acute care hospital with more than 710 beds. Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in an effort to provide better and more equitable access to organs and also to promote cadaver donations modified National Organ Transplantation Guidelines and allowed those above 65 years of age to receive an organ for transplantation from deceased donors. It also removed the domicile requirement to register as an organ recipient in a particular State under a ‘One Nation, One Policy’ move.
Supreme Court asks if unmarried women having children through surrogacy is against Indian society
The Supreme Court on December 5 questioned whether a single, unmarried woman having a child through surrogacy is an “accepted norm” in Indian society.
“A single woman bearing a child is an exception and not a rule in Indian society because our society says to have children within marriage. A single woman bearing a child is outside marriage… That is not the accepted norm of Indian society,” Supreme Court judge B.V. Nagarathna orally observed.
The Bench, also comprising Justice Ujjal Bhuyan, was hearing a petition filed by a 38-year-old single and unmarried woman to become a mother through surrogacy.
The petitioner, represented by senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal, said she was “heavily diabetic” and pregnancy would pose a grave risk to her.
“Even an unmarried woman has the right to have a child,” Kirpal submitted.
The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 allows a widow, a divorced woman between the age of 35 and 45 years, and an infertile couple to avail the benefit of surrogacy.
Kirpal said the law only banned commercial surrogacy. The purpose of the petitioner was obviously not towards that end. Limiting the right to become a mother and discriminating against a woman on the basis of her status of marriage was discriminatory and violative of her fundamental rights to equality and life under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
Justice Nagarathna said the Parliament had recognised the “potential” of a widow or a divorcee, who had gone through marriage and was struck by the “misfortune” of losing her partner through death or divorce, to have a child through surrogacy. The petitioner’s side argued that it was not their “misfortune” which led the Parliament to allow divorcees and widows to have children through surrogacy. They argued that the exclusion of unmarried women boiled down to “patriarchal stigma” against them.
Justice Nagarathna said the law has made marriage a basis of classification, and not discrimination. The judge said married and unmarried woman enjoy the same status and rights as far as termination of pregnancy was concerned. They were treated on par even in the case of adoption.
“But here we are concerned whether single women can have children through surrogacy when the Parliament has not permitted it… Should this court say unmarried women can go for surrogacy?” Justice Nagarathna said.
“Society may not be used to having a single woman bear children, but is that a reason to deny them the right? A multitude of women choose not to marry, some do not get married not because they wish to… Their choices have to be respected. We cannot force them to get married to have a child,” Kirpal submitted.
The petitioner’s lawyers said she had frozen her eggs in December 2023. Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, for the Centre, said unmarried women could undergo pregnancy through assisted reproductive technologies (ART).
“But then she would have to undergo pregnancy,” Kirpal said.
“We have a conundrum here. How many ART procedures have happened in India for unmarried women?” Justice Nagarathna asked the Centre. The judge said “we are keeping in mind the pulse of Indian society”. Kirpal responded that the court should “keep in mind the pulse of the Indian Constitution”. The court issued notice to the Centre.
In Brief:
The Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) government in Mizoram will be sworn in on December 8, an official statement said on Tuesday. Former IPS officer Lalduhoma, to be elected the ZPM Legislature Party leader, will meet Governor Hari Babu Kambhampati soon to stake claim to form the government. The ZPM won 27 of the State’s 40 Assembly seats to oust the Zoramthanga-led Mizo National Front (MNF) from power. In the process, it ended almost four decades of duopoly between the MNF and the Congress. The MNF managed 10 seats to take the second spot while the Congress finished fourth with one seat, behind the BJP’s two.
Evening Wrap will return tomorrow.
