EXCLUSIVE: Top UNICEF children's rights campaigner - who led UK's anti-smacking campaign - is jailed for rape of boy, 13, in latest charity sex scandal

Peter Newell was a leading children's rights campaigner who worked for UNICEF

The 77-year-old, from London, led the UK's anti smacking campaign in a long and distinguished career

Newell also helped prepare UNICEF's Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child

But now he is facing six years and eight months in jail for the abuse of a young boy

Mumbai: A major IT firm along with Maharashtra Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) is building a tool for storage of DNA profile of criminals to help police investigations dealing serious crimes against women and children. Maharashtra will be the first Indian state to start DNA database which will also help law enforcement agencies in tracking maoists as well as terrorists besides repeat offenders.

A senior IPS officer has confirmed the development and added that Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is yet to happen in this regard. “The IT firm is preparing a tool for DNA profiling. The DNA profiling is a very strong evidence because it will lead to quicker arrest of repeat offenders and exoneration of innocent suspects. This DNA profiling will also help increasing the conviction rate, which is alarmingly low at present in India,” the IPS officer told the Free Press Journal.

Almost all developed countries including the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, NZ as well as majority of the European countries have DNA database. Even the China has started preparing DNA database for criminals.

“We are trying to build DNA fingerprint tool – a complete software platform – along with FSL for storage of fingerprint and matching of DNA fingerprinting data. We are trying to build that system in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode with FSL. It will be useful eventually in increasing conviction rate. In developed countries there is fingerprinting database and the rate of conviction is as high as 70 to 80 percent. In India the conviction rate is very low (hardly 15-30 percent). In India, currently, the DNA bill has yet not been presented in Parliament but we believe that even if the Bill comes we will need a system so that the Bill can be implemented smoothly,” said Abhay Jere, Associate Vice-President of the IT firm.

The MoU will happen with Maharashtra government and the funding will be done by the Central Government. The project has been submitted before Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the MoU is likely to happen very soon as the documents have been sent to Additional Chief Secretary of Maharashtra government for approval. “There is very high possibility that the central government’s CSIR might support it because we have already cleared two rounds of evaluation and they are waiting for this MoU to happen to take the discussion forward,” Jere said.

Abandoned child in Rampur

Abandoned child in Rampur

RAMPUR: In a new twist to the case of a “cute” baby girl found abandoned in a garbage bin in Moradabad last week, superintendent of Rampur orphanage Rakesh Saxena said he has received unverified information about her parents. Saxena said he was told by an anonymous caller that the abandoned girl is the daughter of a Dehradun-based couple.

“The anonymous caller rang me up on Monday afternoon and again on Tuesday morning. Later, I got some clues to his identity through Truecaller. He told me that he identified the abandoned baby after watching news reports and knows her father and mother who used to be his good friends. The caller said that the couple used to often fight with each other after the man refused to accept the baby as his daughter,” the orphanage incharge said.

The superintendent has forwarded all details about the anonymous caller to the child welfare committee (CWC), Moradabad. According to the sources, the caller has also provided the numbers of the couple.

IG To Father Of Three, All Want To Adopt Abandoned Baby The state-run orphanage Rajkiya Bal Griha in Rampur has named her ‘Pari’. Officials at the lone orphanage for 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh, which houses 35 children, say the girl cannot be adopted for the next two months. (Express Photo/Gajendra Yadav)

She was found crying in a heap of garbage near the Moradabad highway. The six-month-old girl, dressed in a pink sweater and red trousers, had no name. Since then, her photographs have been splashed across local news channels, Facebook posts and WhatsApp groups in Moradabad, prompting more than 80 people — including a father of three sons, an IG-rank CISF officer from Delhi, a chemist and several residents of Bhikanpur Kulwara — to dial the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) and local police, offering to adopt her.

Far removed from Moradabad, the girl sleeps in a cot at the state-run orphanage, Rajkiya Bal Griha, in Rampur. Officials at the lone orphanage for 13 districts in Uttar Pradesh, which houses 35 children, say the girl cannot be adopted for the next two months, until the CWC holds a committee meeting and deems it fit.

With police yet to track her parents, she has been given a name by the orphanage, Pari. “We name every child who comes here. She is a very beautiful girl… bilkul pari jaisi dikhti hai,” says Rakesh, the orphanage in-charge. Pari was found last Friday morning by Zayda, a resident of Bhikanpur Kulwara. Her neighbour, Salim, fed her milk meant for his eight-month-old son until police arrived. Zayda thought she would get to keep the girl. She smiled for photographs, posing with local police, until the infant was taken away from her. “I told them I had found her. They took her from me, and now the police are questioning us… The CWC people told me I have to register online to adopt the girl,” says Zayda.

Meanwhile, police are investigating phone calls received at the orphanage, claiming that the girl is from Dehradun. “There were some calls made to the orphanage, with the caller claiming to know her parents. We do not know if they are prank calls,” says Station Officer (Kundarki) Dheeraj Solanki.

This petition brings to fore the non-implementation of the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act, 2000. The JJ Act was passed as a uniform set of guidelines to ensure the correct treatment of juvenile offenders. The Constitution of India lays the responsibility on the State to ensure that all the needs of children are met and that their basic human rights are fully protected. Other rights guaranteed by the Constitution, such as right to live with dignity, the right to fair trial and to free and compulsory primary education for children below the age of 14 are also violated due to the non implementation of the said Act.

Case Details and Status

Prior to 1989, India did not have a uniform Juvenile Justice Act. But after the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children, India implemented a uniform law. Observing certain shortcomings in the 1989 enactment, the Juvenile Justice (JJ) Act was passed in 2000 as a uniform set of guidelines to ensure the correct treatment of juvenile offenders, thereby addressing the perceived problems of the 1989 Act. Unfortunately, the lack of implementation of the JJ Act 2000 has left the status quo unchanged.

The petition outlines a detailed study in twelve states of India (Punjab, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Manipur, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Uttaranchal.), which highlighted that the JJ Act was not being implemented. Most of these states failed to establish the following mandatory provisions: the establishment of Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB), Child Welfare Committees (CWC) and special Juvenile Police Units. The JJ Act also requires State Governments to establish Observation Homes, Special Homes and Children’s Homes, which are to provide facilities of care, treatment, education, training and ultimately restore them to a family environment. The importance of these provisions is that they afford protection of the rights of young offenders.

The attitude and ignorance of the State towards the care, protection and rehabilitation of neglected or delinquent juveniles was appalling. In 2005 HRLN filed a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution of India, seeking the strict implementation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act of 2000.

On 9 February, the Supreme Court took the extant government to task for the "tardy if not virtual non-implementation" of juvenile justice laws, and ignoring the plight of "voiceless if not silenced" children of India, after a public interest litigation (PIL) was initiated by activist and human rights defender, Sampurna Behura. The apex court also requested chief justices of all high courts to establish child-friendly courts and vulnerable courts in each district.

The Supreme Court Bench, comprising Justices Madan B Lokur and Deepak Gupta, spoke about the lackadaisical attitude of the government and authorities towards children – there is pendency of cases of abandoned, orphaned and surrendered children; the conditions of children in shelter and observation homes are abysmal; there is an increased number of vacancies in juvenile justice institutions; and there is an absolute lack of initiative by legal service bodies to act, despite the passing of an amendment to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 in 2015.

Supreme Court. Juvenile Justice. Representational image. APRepresentational image. AP

There were several chief justices' conferences held in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2016 about the need to ensure the adequate and effective implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act. As a part of the resolutions passed in these conferences, the Supreme Court noted that every high court has a constituted Juvenile Justice Committee that is headed by a judge to take stock and address issues that concern children. Besides this, the Chief Justice of India also set up a Committee to address issues of implementation of child welfare laws.

Acknowledging that the Bench might be criticised for excessive judicial activism, it stated that the government has done very little for implementation of the Act in its true spirit: "Over the last decade or so, state governments and Union Territories have not fully complied with the provisions of a law solemnly enacted by Parliament for the benefit of children. In many instances, only cosmetic changes have been introduced at the ground level with the result that voiceless children continue to be subjects of official apathy."

The child has been sent to the state-run orphanage in Rampur, the only such facility in western UP

The child has been sent to the state-run orphanage in Rampur, the only such facility in western UP

RAMPUR: After seeing pictures of an adorable six-month-old abandoned baby girl, who was found in a garbage bin on Moradabad-Agra highway on Friday morning, hundreds of couples on Saturday approached police and the child welfare committee (CWC) with requests for adoption. Meanwhile, the local authorities have sent the baby to an orphanage and have said that they will first try to locate her biological parents. The abandoned child's pictures were published in most newspapers and her story was widely circulated on social media.

On Saturday morning, scores of couples queued up outside the office of child welfare committee in Moradabad. These included residents of Bhikanpur-Kulwada village who had spotted and rescued the baby a day earlier.

"The woman who first spotted the child and fetched milk for her has been missing her terribly. She even went to the local police station to check on the baby girl. We all are hoping and praying that her parents are found and she goes back home," said Mehraj Hussain, a resident of Bhikanpur-Kulwada village

New Delhi: A PIL was filed in the Supreme Court on Monday seeking a direction to the Centre to adopt a "two-child" policy to combat the growing population.

The petition filed by Anupam Bajpai, national coordinator of Jeevan Bachao Andolan, through advocate Shiv Kumar Tripathi is expected to be heard next week.

The petition, while suggesting that the number of children in each family be restricted to two, has proposed that the Centre link various welfare measures to people only if they comply with the two-child policy.

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The Two Families Appear Before Authorities Probing The Doctor's Child Dealings, While The Adopted Children Are Kept In A Kolhapur-Based Shelter

Dr Arun Patil

Dr Arun Patil

Three days after Arun Bhupal Patil, a homeopathy doctor and his wife Ujjwala were arrested by the Kolhapur police for allegedly selling newborns born at the hospital Patil worked at, authorities have zeroed down on two families to that illegally adopted the children. They are from Mumbai and Nagpur.

The children, who were bought from their mothers for Rs 2 lakh, were sold for anywhere between Rs 8 lakh to Rs 10 lakh, depending on their gender, probe has revealed. One of the children, born to a widow, was given to a Mumbai-based doctor, while the other child, sent to Nagpur, was delivered by a 16-year-old girl.

Underage girls who were sexually assaulted by billionaire Jeffrey Epstein win the right to see negotiations that saw him jailed for just 18 months

Jeffrey Epstein was accused of paying underage girls - some as young as 14 - for 'erotic massages' at his Florida home and Caribbean island

In 2007, he struck a secret plea deal in which he pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced to just 18 months in prison

Epstein was friends with the Clintons, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew

An appeals court has ruled that the victims' attorneys can view the negotiation documents that led to the deal, which they call lenient