News Broadcasting
Al Jazeera English exposes India’s baby-making booming industry
MUMBAI: The birth business is thriving in India. Childless couples from around the world are flocking to the country, pinning their hopes on the poor young Indian women willing to bear other people’s babies. Al Jazeera English unveils India’s booming baby-making industry in a special episode of 101 East, a weekly Asian current affairs programming on July 26.
In poverty-plagued India, the thousands of dollars couples pay their surrogates, can open the door to a much brighter future. About 12,000 babies, produced by Indian surrogates, are for Western clients. Al Jazeera English follows the two Australian couples hoping to bring home a “made in India” baby and, the highs and lows of them trying to bring a baby home, the stories of women who give birth to babies they will never know.
“If you are just a critic who feels a childless person should live a life of misery and stay childless throughout their life, or a poor person is meant to remain poor all throughout their life then you’ll consider this as something wrong, as something immoral. A farm. A baby-making factory..” said Dr. Nanya Patel, one of the pioneers of the commercial surrogacy business.
The women and increasingly would-be parents are being exploited as ethics are swept aside in pursuit of profit. But have regulations kept pace with the huge expansion in surrogacy services? Many say this emotionally-charged industry is littered with pitfalls for parents and risks for surrogates. The special episode uncovers the success and failures of India’s surrogacy industry.
Tune into Al Jazeera on Dish TV 618 and Tata Sky Channel 533 to catch the special episode on July 26, 09.00 AM and on July 27, 10.00 PM IST
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI: Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
