DEHRADUN: For once, no one was attached to the police lines. The opposite happened, in fact. The police lines, this one in Pithoragarh, got attached to a young orphan girl. So much so that cops in the Uttarakhand station got together to organise her wedding to a local boy, laying out a grand feast for locals.

The usually austere place — commonly used to accommodate reserve forces or receive cops on punishment posting — turned into a radiant wedding venue on Tuesday, the touching event led by none other than their superintendent.

But then, the story of Pushpa Bhatt, the 21-year-old bride, would melt any heart. Pushpa lost both her parents when she was five years old. Raised by her grandmother, the elderly woman too died just as Pushpa stepped into her 10th year. Left an orphan, she relied on the kindness of strangers to get by in life.

About 25 days ago, Pushpa came to Pithoragarh city from her home in Balwakot in search of work. Reserve inspector Naresh Chandra Jakhmola found her sitting alone by the roadside and, being a cop, asked her a string of questions. By the time Pushpa answered them, Jakhmola had decided that he wanted to adopt her.

Jakhmola told TOI on Friday: “I saw her as a blessing from Ma Durga. I have two sons, and when I met Pushpa, I knew she was the daughter I never had. I told her, ‘You are my daughter now and have nothing to worry about,’ and brought her home. My family welcomed her wholeheartedly.”

As luck would have it, a week later Jakhmola was contacted by his son’s mother-in-law, who was looking for a bride for a relative. Seeing it as a sign, Jakhmola introduced Pushpa to the family. Despite Pushpa’s slight disability in one leg, Bipin Upadhyay, who works at a TV cable office in Dharchula, agreed to marry her. Pushpa happily consented.

Jakhmola informed SP Rekha Yadav about the situation and expressed his desire to get Pushpa married off traditionally and with pomp. “When I heard about it, I thought it was a noble idea and immediately pledged the district police unit’s support. We all contributed voluntarily to organise the wedding at the district police lines. Pushpa is now not just Jakhmola’s daughter, but the daughter of the whole district police unit,” Yadav said.

The State Duma has begun considering a bill banning the adoption of children from Russia by citizens of countries that permit gender transition through medical intervention or changes to identity documents. This was reported by State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin.

"We are, in essence, introducing a ban on the adoption of children by citizens of NATO countries, since the overwhelming majority of them permit gender reassignment at the legislative level," the explanatory note to the document says.

As noted in the bill, the ban is aimed at implementing state policy to eliminate any possibility of adoption of Russian children by representatives of the LGBT community.

The State Duma drafted a bill in May to completely ban adoption of a child by foreign citizens if gender reassignment is permitted in their country. The Russian Orthodox Church proposed introducing such a ban a year ago.

The police arrested a couple who were planning to adopt a child, two women who orchestrated the child trafficking and the couple’s relative who acted as a mediator in the business.

A team of Delhi Police, after a week-long search, rescued a toddler who was kidnapped and allegedly sold to a childless couple in Vrindavan, 210 kilometres away from Budh Vihar from where he was reported missing.

The police arrested a couple who were planning to adopt a child, three others, including two women who orchestrated the child trafficking and the couple’s relative who acted as a mediator in the business.

“The missing child has been rescued safely. Efforts are being made to nab one more accused,” Jimmy Chiram, DCP Outer District, said.

According to the police, the one-year-old child was abducted from Kanjhawala Road, near Rajni Gupta Hospital, around 10.30 pm on July 6.

Visakhapatnam: Several districts of the state, particularly the newly constituted ones, do not have functional specialised adoption agencies (SAAs). The agencies are tasked with the care and well-being of every orphan, abandoned, and surrendered child and aid in the process of adoption.

Even though structures/buildings for these agencies were developed long ago, delays in recruitment have made them non-operational. For example, staff recruitment at Paderu centre has been delayed due to local demands for allocating all posts to a particular community. Similarly, all 12 posts remain vacant in Nandyal, and 11 out of 12 posts are yet to be filled in Konaseema district. Of the 156 posts sanctioned for the 13 newly formed districts, 72 posts are currently vacant.

Guatemala's president on Friday offered an official apology to one of the many families whose children were taken away and adopted abroad in a multimillion-dollar black market.

Osmin Tobar and his brother J.R. were seven and two years old when they were picked up by officials in a poor district of Guatemala City in 1997, ostensibly for having being abandoned.

Tobar was adopted by a family in the US city of Pittsburgh. His brother suffered a similar fate, although his whereabouts are unknown.

"On behalf of the state... I apologize publicly for the events of which you were victims," President Bernardo Arevalo said at an event in Guatemala City.

The state's role in the incident "has no justification," he added.

Patna: The state’s first kinship adoption order was issued on Friday, with Patna district magistrate (DM) Chandrashekhar Singh granting adoption orders for three children under the new guidelines based on the Union ministry of women and child development’s 2022 recommendations.Previously, adoption procedures were handled by family courts, but the new laws now authorise the DM to issue final adoption orders. This change is aimed at reducing procedural delays and expedite adoption processes. “The fresh arrangement under the new adoption system has been made to ensure the kids and children get new families and homes at the earliest. The district administration will provide all possible help to the families who want to adopt orphaned children,” the DM said.Singh cautioned that adopting children without following the procedures outlined in the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, amended in 2021, and the Adoption Regulations 2022, is illegal and punishable. “Anyone found doing so could attract a jail term of three years or a fine of Rs 1 lakh or both,” Singh said, adding indulging in the sale or purchase of children is a serious crime that could lead to rigorous imprisonment for five years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh.The DM said any information regarding orphaned or lost children should be reported immediately to the child line service at emergency helpline number 1098 or 112, the nearest police station, the child welfare committee, or the district child protection unit. “Failing to do so may attract a fine of Rs 10,000 or a jail term of six months or both,” Singh added.On the same day, adoption orders were issued for three children – two girls and one boy. “The first girl, rescued from Khagaul (Danapur) when she was just 15 days old, was adopted by a couple from Telangana. The second girl, also rescued from Khagaul (Danapur) at just three days old, was adopted by a couple from Bangalore.

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Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer

Intercountry Adoption: Regulatory Changes to Accreditation and Approval Regulations in Intercountry Adoption

KARACHI: A judicial magistrate allowed a federal agency to search the office of Sarim Burney Welfare Trust International in a case pertaining to “child trafficking by way of illegal adoption”.

Social worker Mr Burney appeared before the court via video link from the central prison.

During the hearing on Thursday, the investigating officer (IO) of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Bilal Ahmed, requested additional time to complete the probe in the ‘child trafficking case’.

He submitted two applications before Judicial Magistrate (East) Yusra Ashfaq, seeking the issuance of a search warrant and permission to record statements from trustees and a prosecution witness.

In his applications, the IO stated that the trust had not provided the remaining records.

CHENNAI: Mary was one-year-old when she was adopted from India and taken to Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1973. The memories of her initial days in Sweden are hazy, but she remembers her parents telling her that she was a difficult child. Her white mother’s blonde hair and blue eyes never appealed to young Mary, and her immediate response to seeing her near her was fear, which grew as aversion. Mary says, “I was longing for my mother. I was screaming all the time, I was terrified. I would dream about my biological parents, especially my mother.” Tormented by estrangement at a very nascent phase of childhood and growing up in an unpleasant environment, aloof from her native, she had a very lonely life.

This adoptee in Sweden grew up hearing that her mother had died during child birth, her grandmother was unfit to take care of her, and thus she was adopted. A compelling truth as it sounds, and it became her reality. But as she grew older, her reality was upended when people started saying that she did not look like her white parents. She says, “People would ask me where I am from and say that I did not look like them.” Her adoptive mother’s thoughtless comments about her brown skin bespoke her ignorance and little knowledge on various skin colours, but were excruciating memories for her. They were reminders ingrained in the mind of the little girl that she did not belong in Sweden. They grew like monsters in her head.

Left hanging between two countries: with biological roots in India and her cultural baggage entrenched in Sweden, the now 52-year-old Mary Rhedin scrambled to lead a peaceful life in an adopted country, amid discreet racism.

Coping mechanism

Well, narratives of inequality, discrimination, and oppression have been an integral part of our discussions, in personal spaces, academia, and extensively in public spaces. Stories are ways of immortalising people, their experiences, and their memories. They are important, they need to be passed on and spread across, and they need to hold more space, after all, they are as powerful as mass protests, slogans, and revolutions. Traumatised and crushed by the weight of her life with the whites, she also sought respite in writing as she did not think there was a space she could have for an honest discussion. She set her sights on a journey: a search for her roots.