Bangalore:  Abortions Increase By 50 Percent?

Earlier in the month,  Techgoss.com saw  articles  in mainstream media in UK, Australia and Hong Kong which stated that the swinging lifestyles of the young and restless in Indian BPO’s had resulted in a 50 percent increase in abortions in Bangalore.  The following are a few paragraphs of the articles published in the UK and Australia and read by tens of millions of people.

"Women come to work with condoms in their handbags," said one call centre worker, Alkesh Dua. "Everyone is doing it. You're together all night in this cool, hip atmosphere, and you end up getting intimate."

Employers have tried to offset the monotonous nature of the work itself by creating an informal college campus atmosphere, where there is drinking and partying.

Since many staff work night shifts, after which normal socialising is impossible, office friendships — with accompanying sexual liaisons — have blossomed.

In Bangalore, a call centre hub, the rising number of abortions — up 50 per cent in two years — is blamed on licentious lifestyles”

The above paragraphs from the same article by the same author were published in London and Sydney but with different headings.  In Australia’s prestigious ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ the article was run on Oct 11 and titled ‘Call Centre Girls have more fun, but it’s blamed for rise of New Delhi belly’.  UK’s ‘telegraph.co.uk’ ran it on Oct 8 and headlined ‘Call Centres are blamed for a rise in loose living among India’s affluent neo elite’.

Calcutta’s ‘Telegraph’ ran the very same article printed in London and Sydney on Oct 9 headlined ‘Church Steps in to save call centre sinners’.  Calcutta’s Telegraph credited the story to UK’s Telegraph.

Techgoss was intrigued.  How does one source and quote a figure of 50 percent increase in number of abortions in Bangalore?  And link it to a cashed up sexually active younger generation.  And what are the real numbers of abortions?  And when did Indian women start carrying condoms in their purses to work? A cursory examination of a few newspapers may give a possible pointer to the source of the story.  Or at least give a more balanced perspective.

Calcutta’s ‘Telegraph’ had published an article on May 14 titled ‘More Sex please, we are BPO’.  This well researched piece by Varuna Verma, which gave a very balanced perspective, had interviewed doctors in Bangalore’s three major hospitals – Sagar Apollo,  Mallya and Manipal.  This article quoted Dr. Leela Bhagwan,  Head of Gynaecology,  Sagar Apollo hospital as saying :  “Earlier,  we would get two to three cases in a month.  Now we attend to as many in a week”.   Does a figure of 12 abortions in a major hospital in a sprawling metropolis give a balanced picture?

Bangalore is one of the hottest tech cities in India with a dramatically increasing population due to  an influx of new IT and BPO employees every month.  And young Indian couples have more control these days on when to start families.  

But the articles in UK, Australian and Hong Kong only gave a figure of 50 percent increase.  Did they pick the convenient facts from Calcutta’s ‘Telegraph’ story on May 14, but cut out the more boring bits - like exact number of abortions?  Somehow a 50 percent increase sounds more sensational and will grab the readers.  Why let the facts get in way of a rollicking, gossipy story?

Techgoss feels that the new generation is living a more liberal lifestyle.  But for every real relationship there are another few imagined ones.  There will always be something to gossip about – real or imagined.  After all, this has been happening for generations.

Has anyone heard the story about how condoms blocked the drains of a call centre?  That is another story doing the rounds.  More later.