What do you do if you decide to come back home after a decade of circumventing the globe, designing and delivering public policies, only to find a society that is much more conservative and less inclined to follow meritocratic principles than the one that you left at the end of the 1990s? If you are a public policy expert and a relentless civic activist alike Diana Topcic-Rosenberg, you join a newly formed liberal party and start a quest to normalise Croatian politics from scratch.

This is, in brief, the story of Topcic-Rosenberg’s entrance into politics that started four years ago, when she joined the Civic Liberal Alliance of Croatia, known better by its abbreviation, GLAS. She came back to her Adriatic homeland after earning a Public Administration Master’s degree from Harvard University and a twenty-year career in the field of international development, with organizations such as the International Rescue Committee and Mercy Corps. But she was not satisfied with what she encountered.

“I think that, over a period of time, women were pushed to the margins of public and political life and there has been an attempt to redefine our role solely as mothers, as family caretakers,” she says. In a way, she has seen her role in politics to be one of the antidotes to these developments. “This is where we, as liberals, and particularly as females, should be going – creating space for women to be equal to men in all aspects of society.”

Topcic-Rosenberg’s own primary cause since she came back to Croatia has been child’s rights, in particular – adoption. She found ADOPTA, the Organization for the Support to Adoption, that grew into a think-tank about adoption with a strong professional and advocacy influence, even outside the country. She created the organization after over 20 years of experience of project management in the humanitarian and public policy sector that brought her to disaster-stricken countries, from the former Yugoslavia to Central America and Africa.

Topcic - Rosenberg

Mumbai: On Sunday, in a shocking incident, a Mumbai-based doctor held for forging papers to facilitate illegal adoption. As per the news agency report, the city police have arrested the doctor from the Shivaji Nagar area in Mumbai.

While commenting on the incident, Mumbai Police crime branch officials said that, "A probe zeroed in on a Shivaji Nagar based doctor, who had told the couple the child was born in his hospital, despite the birth taking place in Rajasthan," as quoted by the news agency PTI.

As per the report the officials claimed that the investigation had revealed that papers, including the baby boy's birth certificate, seem to be fake in this case.

The report further suggests that the doctor helped to make a fake birth certificate which points out that the boy was born in Mumbai, but the baby boy's birthplace is Rajasthan.

The official further reacted saying efforts are on to question the parents who adopted the child.

In a case where a 2-year old girl-child was given in adoption by her biological mother to a couple

by executing a notarised document, without complying with the rigours of the JJ Act, the

Supreme Court on Friday brought the child out of the care of the CWC and entrusted interim

custody to the adoptive parents.

March order of the Bombay High Court refusing permission to the couple to take over custody of

As part of a push to activate multiple child support mechanisms, the State Child Protection Society has opened up applications for families to foster children.

The Delhi Woman and Child Development department has released guidelines for the sponsorship programme that will provide financial assistance of Rs. 2000 monthly to children who are either orphaned and living with extended family, or who have a lone parent incapable of providing for them.

Now, child protection agencies are also inviting applications from families which would like to foster children in child care institutions, orphaned children or those separated from their families.

The eligibility conditions for families to apply to foster a child are:

Delhi News

Hasina, a Canadian-Bangladeshi woman, has urged everyone through her Facebook page to help find her biological parents and family in Bangladesh.

Born in Dhaka, the 44-year-old woman was orphaned as a baby and brought to Families for Children (FFC) orphanage in Dhaka, according to the information provided in her Facebook page "Finding Root for Hasina".

Later, she was adopted when she was three and sent to Canada to live with her new family in 1980.

As she is told that many child traffickers appeared at that time and many were adopted without their biological parent's consent, Hasina wonders if she has anyone back in Bangladesh.

Unfortunately, the current authority of the orphanage couldn't get her any information, she said.

Victims of forced adoption fear generations of their children will suffer because they have no way of knowing if they are at risk of genetic illness.

Experts say the government has a legal responsibility to prevent unnecessary suffering potentially affecting the 60,000 Scottish mothers and the children taken from them because they were not married from the 1950s through the 1970s.

Author Eileen Munro, 53, from Edinburgh, says her shattered childhood, and the effect forced adoption had, led to the death of her own son Craig at the age of 22.

She said: “My mother suffered forced adoption when she had me and my whole life has been torn apart because of that. I believe it also led to the death of my own son in circumstances which should have been prevented.”

Eileen was adopted as a baby into a chaotic home with a couple who had alcohol problems. She said: “As a result I was never ­vaccinated. Of course I had no idea. When I became pregnant at 16 with my own child, I contracted German measles.

Raised as Holger Mischwitzky before he adopted his stage name, Rosa von Praunheim, the prominent German filmmaker turns the camera on himself in this documentary about the search for his birth parents. At the age of 95, von Praunheim's beloved mother, Gertrud, revealed that she had adopted him from a children's home in Riga, Latvia. After her death, with only that snippet of information to go on, von Praunheim and a team of dedicated researchers seek out what information they can about his origins. Von Praunheim must enlist the aid of scholars and historians in Germany and Latvia to narrow down the possibilities-is he Jewish? Illegitimate? A product of Aryan science?-from the paper trail that remains from 1942, the year he was born. Thanks to a bit of luck, he is able to tease out clues about his birth mother, but with each revelation comes a new set of mysteries and possible scenarios. Was it romance or tragedy that brought him into the world? Von Praunheim's exploration is not just a whodunit, but also a fascinating chronicle of the people, places, and ideology of a period: a time when 26,000 people could be exterminated in two days, as the Jews in Latvia were in 1941, and when it was considered completely sensible to be married in an SS uniform. Two Mothers is also a loving tribute to the mother who raised him, the one who remembers the moment she first spotted him. "It was love at first sight for the both of us."

CAST & CREDITS

Directed by Rosa von Praunheim

Rosa von Praunheim (b. 1942, Riga, Latvia), gay activist and filmmaker, believed until 2006 that his real name was Holger Mischwitzky. He chose his artist name Rosa to remind people of the pink triangle ("rosa Winkel") that homosexuals were forced to wear in the Nazi concentration camps. In 1971 he achieved notoriety throughout Germany with his film It's not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, but the Situation in Which He Lives, which was crucial to the founding of the new German gay movement. He has made 70 films, many of which deal with his favorite subjects: homosexuality, older women, and New York City.

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Door Frankrijk 'ontvoerde' kinderen van La Réunion eisen excuses

Frank Renout

correspondent Frankrijk · Ga naar het Twitter account van Frank Renout

Een groep kinderen van het eiland La Réunion voor de kust van Oost-Afrika eist excuses van de Franse regering. Ze werden in de jaren 60 en 70 'meegenomen' door de Franse autoriteiten en verhuisd naar het Franse platteland. Ouders werd vaak valse beloftes gedaan. De kinderen werden na aankomst in Frankrijk soms tot wees verklaard of kregen een nieuwe identiteit.

"We zijn inmiddels 50 jaar verder. Er is niet één regering die iets voor ons heeft gedaan. Het is de hoogste tijd voor excuses", zegt Inel Annette. Hij is lid van een belangenvereniging die de kinderen van destijds hebben opgericht.

A group of children from the island of La Réunion off the coast of East Africa demand an apology from the French government. They were 'taken' by the French authorities in the 1960s and 1970s and moved to the French countryside. Parents were often made false promises. After their arrival in France, the children were sometimes declared orphans or given a new identity.

"We are now 50 years later. Not one government has done anything for us. It is high time for an apology," says Inel Annette. He is a member of an interest group founded by the children of the time.

They have engaged the National Ombudsman in France. It is too late for legal proceedings: the facts are time-barred. But apologies and possible compensation should take away some of the suffering.

An investigation has shown that between 1962 and 1984 the French authorities collected a total of more than 2000 children from La Réunion, which is part of France as an overseas department. The children were almost all under 15; there were also babies and toddlers.

Inel Annette, one of the children of La Réunion FRANK RENOUT/NOS

Edible oil brand Dhara has rolled out a digital film celebrating the occasion of Father’s Day, which urges consumers to legally adopt and support unaccompanied children in this pandemic. Showcasing the joy of parenthood, the digital film subtly conveys a father’s love for her adopted daughter encapsulating the emotional connection beautifully.

The digital film by Dhara edible oils takes the leap from its brand proposition of ‘Zara Sa Badlaav’, with essence of bringing a positive change in life. The newly showcased film is also about bringing in the same ‘Badlaav’ while ushering in positivity in our society and encouraging prospective parents to go for adoption of children, who have been left stranded in this crisis.

Elaborating on the concept Mother Dairy spokesperson said, “Brand Dhara has always endeavoured and supported the cause of bringing the desired change for better health and a better tomorrow. With this crisis, we all need to come forward and bring in the change for a better future of children who have lost their parents to pandemic by adopting them under laid regulations and give them the conducive environment, they deserve. Through this film, we aim to inspire the generation who can support the cause and bring in that change in our society.”

Ashutosh Sawhney, Managing Partner, DDB Mudra Group, North, mentioned, “This film further strengthens Dhara’s point of view of ‘Zara sa badlaav’. The pandemic has meant devastation for many families and we believe that trusted brands like Dhara must drive the altruistic narrative of bringing about positive change at every conceivable level of the society, in which these brands live.”

The Film opens around a dinner table wherein a father, mother and a cute 7–8-year-old daughter are having their meal. During the discussion, daughter asks “Papa, can you pass me the roti?” Both the parents are keenly looking at her and then the father asks her to repeat which she does with a naughty smile, however, misses to address him as ‘Papa’ in the beginning, to which father asks her to follow the sentence again. She repeats the same as asked. The father then passes on the roti to her daughter and then looks towards her wife with teary eyed and eventually both turn emotional with tears. The camera slowly pans towards the father’s workstation at home where a file rests mentioning, “Riya Agarwal – Adoption Papers” implying towards the legal adoption process in place. Heading to the last frame the super says that ‘The second wave of Covid-19 has left thousands of children in India orphaned. The best time to become a strong dad is now.’