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By:

Akhilesh Sinha

25 June 2025 at 8:23:54 pm

An Entitled Passport to Protest

The manicured streets of uptown Mumbai’s Bandra and Khar areas have long fostered a peculiar breed of celebrity activism that routinely mistakes the shield of an elite lineage for immunity from national law. Imran Khan, the nephew of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, has enjoyed the multi-layered privileges of India’s entertainment aristocracy. Despite a career defined far more by inherited access than by cinematic triumph, Khan was handed high-profile launches on a silver platter. After debuting...

An Entitled Passport to Protest

The manicured streets of uptown Mumbai’s Bandra and Khar areas have long fostered a peculiar breed of celebrity activism that routinely mistakes the shield of an elite lineage for immunity from national law. Imran Khan, the nephew of Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, has enjoyed the multi-layered privileges of India’s entertainment aristocracy.
Despite a career defined far more by inherited access than by cinematic triumph, Khan was handed high-profile launches on a silver platter. After debuting in Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na, his subsequent screen output quickly laid bare the limits of his range. Critics and audiences alike routinely panned his one-dimensional performances in forgettable commercial misfires like Luck, Kidnap, and Katti Batti. Lacking the dramatic weight or versatility of his contemporaries, Khan eventually drifted away from acting altogether, leaving behind a filmography widely viewed as a textbook case of nepotistic mediocrity over merit. Yet, this week, Khan’s cocoon of celebrity exceptionalism (and artistic irrelevance) shattered when a Saturday afternoon street protest transformed the former actor into the ultimate poster child for elite hubris and geopolitical ignorance. The flashpoint occurred on October 10 at Mumbai’s August Kranti Maidan, where the activist group Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) had gathered to orchestrate an aggressive anti-CEC demonstration. Khan marched alongside protestors, treating a highly sensitive domestic political agitation as if it were a casual weekend networking event. When the Mumbai Police swiftly intervened to disperse the unauthorized gathering, Khan was detained. Rather than displaying an ounce of civic sobriety, the actor leaned entirely into performative defiance. From the back of the police van, he flashed a smug victory sign and uploaded a selfie to Instagram with the tone-deaf caption: “Apparently, I am going for a drive.” But the theatre soon evaporated when the state apparatus applied the actual rule of law. A formal complaint threw the spotlight onto a critical, inconvenient reality that Khan is an American citizen. Born in Madison, Wisconsin, he holds a US passport. While his family ties allowed him to secure an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card and build a lucrative career in the Hindi film industry, he remains, under the absolute text of the constitution, a foreign national. Acting strictly within the legal framework, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) later issued a definitive “Leave India Notice” to the actor’s residence. Invoking the explicit provisions of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, the central agency called out his blatant violation of visa guidelines. The mandate was absolute: pack your bags and exit the country by October 28. Under long-standing sovereign rules, foreign nationals possess absolutely zero authority to interfere in, agitate against, or participate in the internal political machinery of the Indian Republic. The swift, stern administrative response exposed a massive fracture within the film fraternity, drawing sharp rebukes from veteran industry voices who refused to coddle the actor’s legal overreach. Speaking out on the brewing scandal, veteran actor Raza Murad delivered a scathing, grounded reality check to the star’s camp: “Whether it is Imran Khan or anyone else, no foreign national has any business interfering in the internal affairs of our country. I have only just learned that Imran Khan has become a U.S. national; he was an actor here. As a U.S. national, he has no right to participate so actively in the country’s internal affairs or its politics. The Mumbai Police are acting strictly within the legal framework.” Murad further dismantled the narrative of victimhood being spun by Khan’s defenders, pointing out the procedural fairness already extended to him. This incident has further laid bare the hollow performativism of Bollywood’s pseudo-liberal contingent, who routinely treat complex national affairs as casual backdrops for personal brand management. Insulated within luxury enclaves, figures like Khan step onto the street out of sheer entitlement, blissfully ignorant of both local civic sensitivities and basic constitutional laws. Faced with the hard ceiling of statutory law, Khan’s legal team has scrambled to file an urgent petition before the Bombay High Court. Yet, no amount of high-priced legal manoeuvring can obscure the foundational lesson of this debacle. While he was better off being away from the proverbial madding crowd, Imran Khan’s ill-advised stunt has now drawn a stark line for the global diaspora, namely that an OCI card is a privilege for cultural and economic connection, and not a license for foreign passport holders to dictate terms on Indian streets.

AI in Sperm Sorting: An Unbiased Decision for A Better Outcome

Writer: Dr. Ramnath Babu T J
Dr. Ramnath Babu T J
Nov 7, 2024
3 min read

Artificial Intelligence or AI is revolutionising fertility treatments of the future. The inclusion of AI enhances the accuracy, efficiency, and objectivity of sperm selection, hence potentially improving fertility outcomes by leaps and bounds. Traditionally, sperm sorting through manual methods is subjective to judgments. Processes like centrifugation and swim-up methods are used to separate sperm based on motility and morphology. Although they are effective, they have their limitations, leading to human errors that affect the success rates of fertility treatment. For instance, studies have shown that traditional sperm sorting techniques can have variability in success rates, with reported live birth rates ranging between 15 per cent to 25 per cent per cycle depending on the method and quality of sperm. Hence the introduction of AI helps in maintaining consistency in evaluations of sperm, using the same data set for every sample which leads to better judgments.


Automation and Standardisation- Automation of sperm selection and also introduction of AI in the process have improved the results in ART. AI-assisted sperm selection improves the accuracy in choosing high-quality sperm for fertilisation purposes, and also, pregnancy and live birth rates might be improved. Technologies like Intracytoplasmic Morphologically Selected Sperm Injection along with AI ensure the chances of pregnancies increase by about 10-20 per cent compared to the standard procedures. AI and Automation will decrease time taken to analyze sperm and increase opportunities to select better sperm with DNA integrity for better development and higher success rates in embryo selection. These processes ensure that the sperm selection process follows consistent criteria, reducing variability in outcomes caused by human error.


Analysing Complex Data for Better Outcomes- AI plays a crucial in improving IVF outcomes by analysing complex data and providing tailored recommendations. AI-driven tools and models such as those on SpOvum.ai point towards an opportunity to optimise ovarian stimulation decisions by assessing patient characteristics and follicle growth patterns. A study revealed that the use of AI in IVF improved egg yield and reduced medication costs. AI enables fertility specialists to make data-driven choices, improving overall IVF success rates and streamlining treatment processes.


Reducing Human Error- AI models can continuously learn and refine their performance by being trained on newer data. This adaptability ensures the technology remains unbiased and up-to-date with the latest scientific insights into sperm quality and fertility success rates. Studies have shown that AI-driven sperm sorting can decrease human-related errors by up to 25 per cent, improving sperm selection quality in terms of morphology and motility.


Reduction of Sperm Damage- The new AI-driven sperm sorting techniques also include microfluidic systems that are known to exhibit several advantages over the most commonly used conventional method, which is centrifugation. Traditional centrifugation methods, such as density gradient centrifugation, also cause severe oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation of the sperm because of the very high mechanical forces involved. The AI-infused microfluidic sorting minimises this damage significantly by involving gentler processes that mimic the natural pathway of sperm selection. The studies show that the process of microfluidic sorting decreases DNA fragmentation in sperm, which gives improved opportunities for success for IVF. For example, DNA fragmentation is 20 percent lower in sperm sorted using microfluidic processes than in traditional processing methods.


AI is bound to play an increasingly definitive role in fertility treatments, which will improve the outcomes for couples experiencing infertility.


(The author is a Co-Founder & CEO at SpOvum® Technologies. Views personal.)

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