Berhampur: A four-month-old girl from R Udayagiri block in Gajapati district has been adopted by a couple from Kolkata, West Bengal. The child was surrendered by her unwed mother to the district administration over three months ago.

Following guidelines from the Central Adoption Resources Authority (CARC), Gajapati collector Srumti Ranjan Pradhan handed over the baby to the new parents on Thursday evening at Paralakhemundi. District child protection officer (DCPO) Arun Kumar Tripathy, officials of the childcare home were also presented.

The couple had waited nearly four years to adopt a child through CARC. “At last we got a baby and from today, she is our daughter,” said the adoptive mother. The couple run a business in Kolkata “Unable to take care of the child, her unwed mother had handed her over to the district administration after about 20 days of her birth. The baby was housed in a childcare institute near Paralakhemundi,” said the DCPO.

Tripathy said since the establishment of a specialized adoption agency in Gajapati district in 2018, nearly 55 children have been adopted by families both within India and abroad.

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A 51-year-old woman from the Enzkreis district has been sentenced to prison for defamation offenses against Gunther Krichbaum, a member of the German Bundestag from Pforzheim, and his wife, Dr. Oana Krichbaum. The First Criminal Senate of the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe dismissed the defendant's appeal against a judgment issued by the Pforzheim branch of the Karlsruhe Regional Court on March 8, 2023, as unfounded. In that judgment, the defendant had been sentenced to a total of seven months' imprisonment, one month of which was deemed served due to unlawful procedural delays.

According to the findings of the Regional Court, the defendant had allegedly claimed in numerous instances on Facebook and in emails to various recipients, including newspaper editorial offices and members of the state and federal parliaments, that Dr. Oana Krichbaum had been involved in illegal child trafficking in Romania and that Gunther Krichbaum had attempted to cover this up by exploiting his political office. After the Krichbaums initially pursued civil action against the defendant, they filed a criminal complaint on April 23, 2018, regarding three Facebook posts published by the defendant on February 13, February 26, and March 26, 2018, which in all cases referred to Dr. Oana Krichbaum and in two cases also to Gunther Krichbaum. The defendant continued to make similar defamatory statements, even in her final statement at the appeal hearing before the Regional Court. The regional court also stated in its judgment that the defendants' claims were neither demonstrably true nor covered by freedom of expression or other legitimate interests of the defendants.

The Karlsruhe Regional Court sentenced the defendant to six months' imprisonment each for the three aforementioned offenses from 2018, which are the sole subject of the proceedings, and combined these individual sentences into a total prison term of seven months. The Regional Court declared one month of this sentence already served due to an unlawful delay in the appeal proceedings. The Regional Court did not suspend the execution of the total prison term because it did not consider the defendant to have a positive prognosis for future criminal behavior, as she had not been deterred by either civil proceedings or the previous criminal proceedings from continuing to make defamatory statements about the Krichbaum couple.

In the appeal proceedings, the First Criminal Senate of the Higher Regional Court was required to review both the content of the Regional Court's written grounds for judgment and – insofar as raised by the defendants' defense – the proceedings before the Regional Court for any legal errors that might have affected the decision. The Senate found no such legal errors on which the Regional Court's judgment was based. In particular, it did not consider the offenses to be time-barred and did not object to the rejection of the defense's supplementary motions for evidence. The fact that a witness's email was read aloud during the main hearing instead of her testimony had clearly not affected the content of the Regional Court's judgment. The Regional Court correctly considered the defendants' fundamental right to freedom of expression. The Regional Court's sentencing – including the decision not to suspend the sentence – was also not subject to legal challenge on appeal.

No further legal recourse is available. The judgment of the Karlsruhe Regional Court is now legally binding.

Minister of State for Europe Gunther Krichbaum is the Commissioner for Franco-German Cooperation. He coordinates political relations with France and works to promote broad-based societal exchange between the two countries.

On the French side, this task has been carried out by Benjamin Haddad, Minister of State for Europe at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, since September 2024.

On the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Élysée Treaty, on 22 January 2003, the two governments agreed to intensify their cooperation by holding a Franco-German Council of Ministers on a regular basis and by each appointing a commissioner for Franco-German cooperation. With the Treaty of Aachen, signed on 21 January 2019, this cooperation was expanded further, intensified and geared to the challenges of the coming decades.

Franco-German cooperation

The Commissioners are responsible for coordinating Franco-German cooperation at the governmental level. As envisaged in the Treaty of Aachen, the Commissioners monitor the multiannual agenda of projects adopted by the Franco-German Council of Ministers and report back to the Council. They inform the parliaments as to the overall progress made in the area of Franco-German cooperation.

What You Need to Know

In Karnataka, nearly 70% of foreign adopters choose children with special needs, while less than 2% of Indian parents do. This disparity stems from greater foreign awareness, social acceptance, and shorter waiting periods versus Indian societal stigma and preference for healthy children. Officials are launching awareness drives to encourage more domestic adoption of special needs children.

*AI-generated summary. Check context in original text.

In a revealing trend highlighting contrasting attitudes toward adoption, data from the Directorate of Child Protection shows that nearly 70% of foreign adopters from Karnataka in the past six years have chosen children with special needs, while less than 2% of Indian adoptive parents have done the same.

Between 2020–21 and 2025, Karnataka recorded 155 inter-country adoptions, out of which 108 involved special children. Most of these adoptions were by parents from the United States, Canada, Italy, and France. The special needs ranged from speech and hearing impairments to cleft lip, limb deformities, and minor cardiac conditions.

Bengaluru: Marking the observance of National Adoption Awareness Month, the District Child Protection Unit (DCPU) - Bengaluru East, in a landmark association with Shishu Mandir, successfully launched its month-long adoption awareness initiative, AASARE (Adoption Assistance and Support for Abandoned, Surrendered and Orphan Children Responsibly & Ethically), tcovering the Bengaluru East area.

The flagship event, "Drive for Aasare," featured a vibrant Women’s E-Auto Rally, effectively drawing public attention to the critical need for legal adoption and securing the fundamental right of every child to a loving family.

Family games

The rally commenced at the DCPU Office in K.R. Puram and culminated at Shishu Mandir, symbolizing the journey toward providing permanent, family-based care for abandoned, surrendered, and orphaned children.

The news

The state government is backtracking on a much-criticised decision that made it difficult for Queenslanders separated by adoption to reconnect with their families.

The Justice Department wrote to Jigsaw Queensland, a forced adoption support service provider, on Tuesday to confirm the reversal of its stance on access to information, based on “further advice”.

This came two months after what had been described as a privacy-related crackdown.

Jigsaw welcomed the change, but lamented the distress and confusion the situation had caused members of the community and called for the rights to be enshrined in law to ensure a similar scenario did not occur again.

Nearly forty years after Jyoti Weststrate (41) was given as a 'gift' to a priest, she is receiving something that has never happened before. An international Catholic organization is offering the Deventer woman an apology for her adoption.

Niek Verhoeven

11 november 2025, 16:01•Laatste update: 18:39

The apology from the Jesuit Order, an international Catholic organization, feels like a breakthrough for Jyoti Weststrate (41). She finally receives recognition for the injustice done to her.

- Agreement opens the path for preserving adoption records in specialized archival facilities -

The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW, Minister Jeong Eun Kyeong), the National Archives of Korea (President Lee Yong-chul), and the National Center for the Rights of the Child (NCRC, President Chung Ick-joong) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Friday, October 10, at 4:30 p.m. at the Seongnam Branch of the National Archives of Korea to ensure the secure preservation and systematic management of adoption records. 

The agreement was initiated to establish a national-level specialized management system that ensures the secure and systematic preservation of adoption records, which were transferred to the NCRC following the July 19 enforcement of the government-led adoption system. Prior to this, the National Archives inspected storage conditions at the temporary facility in Goyang, where the records had been kept. Based on those inspections and subsequent discussions among the institutions, a cooperative framework was developed.

A team excavating at the site of a former Irish mother-and-baby institution have found seven sets of what they believe to be infant remains.

The Office of the Director of Authorised Intervention Tuam (ODAIT) began their mass excavation of the burial site in Tuam, County Galway, with the objective of identifying the remains of children and babies. 

It is currently unclear whether the bones they have uncovered date back to when the institution was open or from an earlier period. 

St Mary's Home operated from 1925 until 1961 and was run by the Bon Secours Sisters. Pregnant women out of wedlock were kept away in the home and post-birth, newborns were often given up for adoption. 

The home came under international controversy in 2014 after local historian Catherine Corless noticed there were no burial records accounting for the 796 death certificates of the infants who died there. 

The woman also said that she had earned Rs 10 lakh by working during her holidays but her foster mother took away all her money due to which she was unable to return to her own country.

BHUBANESWAR: A 21-year-old Odia woman adopted by an American couple has sought the intervention of Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi alleging she was facing harassment at the hands of her foster mother and two murder attempts had also been made on her.

In two separate video messages in Odia and English, the woman further requested the chief minister to facilitate her return journey to Odisha. In the video, the woman said her passport was valid from 2018 to 2023. However, even after the expiry of her passport, her foster mother was not arranging the required documents for her return journey, she alleged.

“I was staying and studying at a hostel in Bhubaneswar and was very happy. Since I came to America, I am not happy at all. My foster mother forces me to do a lot of household work after I return from school,” the woman said, breaking down in tears. She claimed that two murder attempts had been made on her in the United States. “I am a Hindu but my foster mother is forcing me to change my faith,” she further alleged.

The woman also said that she had earned Rs 10 lakh by working during her holidays but her foster mother took away all her money due to which she was unable to return to her own country. She requested the chief minister to facilitate her return journey to Odisha at the earliest so that she can find her parents with whom she got separated several years back.