The Allahabad High Court has observed that a person below the age of 18 cannot be in a live-in relationship and this would be an act not only immoral but also illegal.

A bench of Justices Vivek Kumar Birla and Justice Rajendra Kumar made the observation in a recent judgment dismissing a petition filed by Ali Abbas, a 17-year-old boy, and his live-in partner Saloni Yadav, 19.

Bench observation

"There are several conditions for a live-in relation to be treated as a relation in nature of marriage and in any case, a person has to be major (above the age of 18 years), although he may not be of marriageable age (21 years). Hence, a child cannot have a live-in relationship and this would be an act not only immoral but also illegal," the bench observed.

"An accused who is below 18 years of age cannot seek protection on the ground of having a live-in relationship with a major girl and thus, he cannot seek quashing of the criminal prosecution against him as his/her activity is not permissible in law and is thus illegal," the bench added.

Two Danes from Thy thought they knew who they were, but some words on an old cassette tape changed everything.

The cassette tape was hidden for decades in a box in Thy.

It's a Sony tape with space for 45 minutes on each side, and on the B-side someone has written in pen on the yellowed sticker.

- Sophie, Sep. 77, it says.

She is 49 years old, and it is her bright child's voice that is heard singing and talking on the tape recordings.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Gauri Godse had directed the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to hand over the child’s custody, who was abandoned by the mother, to the father while hearing his plea.

Matters are decided within four corners of law and not on general perceptions, remarked the Bombay High Court when a mother, who had abandoned the child since she was a minor at the time of birth, opposed handing over of the custody to the biological father following a habeas corpus (produce the person in court) petition.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Gauri Godse had directed the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) to hand over the child’s custody, who was abandoned by the mother, to the father while hearing his plea.

On Monday, additional public prosecutor Prajakta Shinde informed the court that the panel had passed a fresh order handing over the custody to the father.

Mother opposes child's custody given to father

The Telangana government has decided to adopt orphaned children in the state and provide them with all amenities on humanitarian grounds.

By Apoorva Jayachandran: Telangana Minister KT Rama Rao on Monday announced that the government would introduce an "Orphan Policy" under which it will adopt orphans in the state. The policy will serve the orphans in the state and they will be considered 'children of the state', said Telangana minister KT Rama Rao. This scheme will be introduced in the next cabinet session, said the minister.

The government will provide the children with all amenities on humanitarian grounds, much like the other schemes introduced by the Telangana government, said the minister.

The Telangana government in 2022 decided to introduce a Comprehensive Act aiming at providing better living conditions for orphaned children in the state.

The cabinet sub committee on Child Welfare and Women's Development then took a slew of important decisions which included declaring orphans as 'State Children' (Rashtra Biddalu) to extend all kinds of assistance to the orphans.

T. R. Fehrenbach’s classic history of the Korean War, This Kind of War (1962), famously calls the conflict “not a test of power—because neither antagonist used full powers—but a test of wills.”1 Originally subtitled A Study in Unpreparedness, it describes a US that learned the hard way what it took to fight a limited proxy war abroad. The first chapter, “Seoul, Saturday Night,” recounts the eve of the Korean War in anticipatory detail, with the pathos of retrospective knowledge. Surveying the American colony and its embassy bars, the narrator observes:

Over tax-free liquor, the colony laughed over Foster’s [John Foster Dulles] visit, and over the official who had been caught keeping North Korea’s Number One female spy. This man had even bought the woman a short-wave radio, and it was said the ROK’s would shoot her.

In spite of American influence, the ROK’s were still extremely brutal to leftist elements in their midst. Of course, they could not shoot the American official.

There had been a child, towheaded yet, the American wives in Seoul told each other. Some American couple would, of course, adopt it.2

The final sentence of this anecdote appears to end this story of sex, violence, and treason rather matter-of-factly. Though Fehrenbach often sums up other passages with quotable philosophical adages, this sentence is not one. As a line of free indirect discourse, it offers complexity rather than a voice of clear moral insight. Does it belong to the American wives, retaining the previous sentence’s whisper of scandal? Or has the omniscient historian picked up the thread here, returning us to a world of objective fact? And what about the “would” of “would adopt it”? If part of the local gossip, the adoption could range from speculative to probable; if spoken from the narrator’s present, it would be a fait accompli. Regardless, adoption is figured here as a thing taken for granted. As a geopolitical solution, its potential ramifications are dismissed in their very expression.

The vagueness of agency and moral reasoning in this sentence reflects the historical formalization of transnational adoption. Between the dual narrative temporalities of this sentence as character speech and historian’s narration, adoption of these “towheaded,” mixed-race children would transition from an informal possibility to an established practice of moving children across borders, from a collection of ad hoc processes to a matter overseen by social welfare professionals and immigration services. In the years to come, transnational adoption would prove an established option for modern family-making in the West and part of America’s humanitarian repertoire in subsequent conflicts. Korea, too, would continue to be one of the top “sending countries” of children to the US, with an estimated ten percent of all Korean Americans having been adopted from abroad.3

Woo request about dinner pensant intercountry adoption

Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra told the Rajya Sabha on July 26 that 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below 18 years went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country.

Around 13.13 lakh girls and women went missing in the country in the three years between 2019 and 2021, with Madhya Pradesh accounting for the highest at nearly two lakhs, closely followed by West Bengal, the Ministry of Home Affairs has informed the Rajya Sabha.

Minister of State for Home Affairs, Ajay Kumar Mishra told the Rajya Sabha on July 26 that 10,61,648 women above 18 years and 2,51,430 girls below 18 years went missing between 2019 and 2021 across the country. “In 2019, the number of girls and women who went missing was 82,084 and 3,42,168 respectively, while in 2020, 79, 233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing,” he said.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) website, 82,619 girls went missing in 2019 and 49,436 were recovered. In the same year, 3,29,504 women went missing, and 1,68,793 were recovered. In 2020, 79,233 girls and 3,44,422 women went missing. Of these, 2,24,043 women were recovered while the number of girls recovered in 2019 was not given. “In 2021, 90,113 girls went missing and 58,980 were recovered. 3,75,058 women went missing and 2,02,298 were recovered,” the data shows.

• Lauren and Jacob Maloberti have been charged with the homicide of their son
• Prosecutors in Pennsylvania say Landon, 5, suffered three brain bleeds as a result of the beating 
• His siblings told police their mother would 'spank him with a wooden spoon'

A couple charged with beating their five year-old adopted son to death and leaving his brain 'obliterated' posted a fundraiser online to pay for their attorneys.

Lauren, 34, and Jacob Maloberti, 33, a corrections officer at Fayette State Correctional Center in Pennsylvania, are accused of violently abusing Landon, 5, causing blunt force trauma to his head and neck.

Police probed the couple after they brought the unresponsive schoolboy into AHN Hempfield Neighborhood Hospital on January 30, claiming he had been 'wobbly from COVID a month prior.'

On 26th July, the Aurangabad Bench of the Bombay High Court denied permission for abortion to a 17-year-old minor girl. In the order, a two-judges-bench comprising Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice YG Khobragade said the physical relation between the minor and the person accused of rape was consensual and the girl was aware of it. Furthermore, 24 weeks of pregnancy have passed. The girl completed 18 years of age on 29th July.

OpIndia accessed the judgment in the matter. The physical relationship between the boy and the girl was first established in December 2022, and they continued the relationship for months. As per the girl’s statement, she used to go to the accused’s hostel. In March/April 2023, the girl bought a self-pregnancy-test kit and learned that she was pregnant. However, she did not inform her parents about it.

On 1st July, her mother lodged an FIR that someone had taken away her daughter. The police traced the girl and the person accused and brought them to the police station. During the medical examination, it was revealed that the girl was pregnant. On 12th July, the radiologist stated the age of the fetus was 24 weeks and 3 days.

The court said if she did not want to keep the child, she should have approached the court before to take permission for an abortion.

Notably, abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy requires permission from the court. The mother filed the petition in the Bombay High Court on behalf of the minor. In the petition, the girl sought permission to abort the child under the POCSO act, saying she was a minor. The court gives permission to abort the child after 20 weeks only after considering threats to the life of the mother and child. In the petition, the mother claimed that giving birth to a child at this age would impact the girl’s mental health.

Getting necessities from a meagre income is a well-known fact, but have you heard of selling your blood to get an Apple sticker on the back of your smartphone? Sounds absurd, right? Well, a shocking incident took place in West Bengal where a couple went to even greater lengths and sold their baby to purchase an iPhone 14, all to create Instagram reels while travelling across Bengal.
This heart-wrenching incident occurred in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district. The West Bengal Police managed to apprehend the mother, identified as 'Sathi,' who was responsible for buying?? or selling?? the baby. However, the father, Jaydev Ghosh, is still at large, and the authorities are actively searching for him.

The incident came to light when concerned neighbours noticed some peculiar changes in the Ghosh family's behaviour. The eight-month-old baby had been missing for days, yet the parents displayed no signs of worry or anxiety. Additionally, their sudden acquisition of an iPhone 14, which costs no less than a lakh, raised suspicion among the neighbours, given that the family was known to have financial difficulties in the past.
Upon confronting the mother, she eventually confessed under pressure that she and her husband had indeed sold their baby to acquire money for purchasing the iPhone, enabling them to create Instagram reels showcasing their travels across various parts of Bengal.

Even more shocking, it was revealed that before attempting to sell their baby, the father had also tried to sell his seven-year-old daughter. The police have filed a case against the couple, and the mother who bought the baby is also facing criminal charges for human trafficking.

The investigation is still ongoing, and further details will be shared once the police delve deeper into the case.

This incident is not the first of its kind, unfortunately. In India, there have been multiple instances where parents have resorted to selling their children for materialistic gains. For instance, back in 2016, a Chinese couple sold their 18-day-old daughter for $3530 to purchase an iPhone.

In a tragic incident from March of this year, an Australian woman expressed her desire in court to exchange her unborn child for an iPhone. Subsequently, she committed an unthinkable act, locking two of her daughters inside a car for nine hours, leading to their demise.

These are the clear indicators and warning signs of why societies must work together to prevent such heinous acts and provide support to families facing financial hardships or mental health issues.

In a disturbing case in Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, an orphanage was found illegally selling babies to childless couples. The head of the orphanage, who also operated a shelter for destitute women, was caught running the adoption racket. The babies were sold for amounts ranging from Rs. 100,000 to Rs. 200,000. This incident sheds light on the concerning issue of human trafficking, especially involving children, which is a growing crime problem in India. Authorities are taking action to combat such illegal activities and protect vulnerable children from exploitation.

According to The Times of India, a couple from the North 24 Parganas district sold their child to fund their purchase of an iPhone 14, likely because of its high-end camera capabilities.