Kolkata: Bengal has one of the highest rates of child adoption in the country but couples continue to be reluctant to adopt children who are six years or older.State Adoption Resource Agency (West Bengal) governing body member Bipasha Roy said the primary reason why the queue of prospective adoptive parents was always long was because of their reluctance to adopt children above five years."The reasons behind demand for children, preferably below 2 years, is primarily because parents want the children to grow up the way they want without any recollection of the past. Parents want children who are like a clean slate and can be moulded into the way they want. Not only do they think integration into the family will be easier, there are also societal prejudices involved," said RoyFunctionaries of Atmaja, an association for adoptive parents that was formed 25 years ago to share their experiences with couples seeking to adopt, is now focusing on ways to explain to prospective adoptive parents the advantages of taking in an older child."Couples usually go for adoption when they have spent 10 years trying to have a child. That means they are already in their late 30s or early 40s. If they were to adopt a six-seven year-old child, it could happen in a matter of days as there are many children of that age waiting for adoption. Also, the age gap between the parents and the child would be less," explained former Jadavpur University professor and adoptive parent Nilanjana Gupta, the founder chairperson of Atmaja."We also tell couples seeking to adopt that one of the major dilemmas that parents face over when and how to disclose to the children that they are adopted is not there in the case of older children as they already know they are being adopted," said Anup Dewanji, a retired professor at ISI and an adoptive parent who is now the chairman of Atmaja.Saumeta Medhor of adoption agency The Indian Society for Sponsorship & Adoption, says the biggest challenge is couples wanting to adopt a child who is a clean slate with no memories. "Only 1% of couples look for an older child and they do so because they are ineligible for someone younger," she said.

Interview with Former Chairperson Park Sun- young of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Concluding its Second Term

"South Africa, which was under colonial rule for over 300 years, finally came to terms with its past in just three years. But South Korea has been dealing with its past for over 20 years. Resolving the issue of the past is about achieving justice, not a pawn for some leftist lawyers."

Park Sun-young, former chairwoman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), said in an interview with this newspaper, “In Korea, settling past history has become a ‘commercialization,’” and “Justice has long since been distorted into vested interests.” Park served as the final chairwoman of the second-term Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which launched in December 2020, and resigned on the 26th of last month, concluding her term. Regarding the Democratic Party of Korea’s push to revise the Past History Act to launch the third-term Truth and Reconciliation Commission, she said, “If we continue to cling to the past, a proper investigation of the truth will be delayed, and victims may be forced into lawsuits again.” The interview with Park was conducted on the 25th of last month, a day before her retirement, at the TRC’s office in Jung-gu, Seoul.

In an interview, former Chairman Park said, “The unreasonable situation in which the issue of resolving past history has become a means of business for left-wing activists continues to persist,” and “The so-called past history specialist lawyers and law firms are using the past history as a business.” Previously, attorney Kim, formerly of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society (Minbyun), was indicted on charges of receiving 2.47 billion won in legal fees for taking on around 40 lawsuits, including lawsuits for state compensation filed by victims based on cases he investigated while working at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was found guilty by the Supreme Court in 2022.

News of a baby being abandoned in the baby hatch emerges regularly. In October, it happened again: the third in three months. Since the hatch opened in 2000, 22 children have been abandoned. This is often presented as good news: a child has been saved. But behind this physical rescue lies primarily psychological suffering. A mother is left without a child and carries lifelong trauma. And the baby gets a difficult start from birth.

A system that leaves women alone

The baby hatch is described as "an opportunity for a distraught mother to anonymously give her child a warm and safe home." This sounds reassuring, but the reality is that the system leaves women in crisis completely alone. A mother who, out of desperation, has to abandon her baby in this way, has usually been isolated for a long time: financially, emotionally, socially. A hatch in a wall doesn't change these circumstances. She receives no information, no shelter, no psychological support. She disappears, just like her story. The guilt, shame, and grief remain, in silence, without a name or record, without anyone to listen. That's not a care system; that's looking the other way.

What a baby loses

For a newborn, the baby door might seem like a safe place, but it immediately deprives the child of their first right: knowing where they come from. A baby door deliberately creates a void: a system in which a child legally and emotionally belongs to no one. No mother's or father's name, no medical history, no family history. Only a date and file number. For many adoptees, the question "Why couldn't I stay?" isn't a philosophical consideration but a daily loss. Lack of information about their lineage can develop into a lifelong wound.

Dawn raids on the EU diplomatic service and the College of Europe deepen fears that corruption has reached the highest levels of the bloc’s foreign-policy machinery

Belgian police arrested the EU’s former top diplomat Federica Mogherini and senior Commission official Stefano Sannino as part a sweeping fraud investigation that is renewing fears about corruption in the highest ranks of the European bureaucracy.

The arrests came amid dawn raids, first reported by Euractiv, on the EU diplomatic service in Brussels and the College of Europe in Bruges, where Mogherini, who previously served as Italy’s foreign minister, is the rector. The ongoing probe involves alleged misuse of EU funds, according to people familiar with the investigation and witnesses.

In addition to Mogherini, a socialist who headed the EU’s foreign service between 2014 and 2019, and Sannino, a fellow Italian diplomat who heads the Commission’s directorate general for the Middle East and Northern Africa (DG-MENA),  a third person, who works in the executive education department of the College of Europe, was also detained.

All three were questioned on suspicion of procurement fraud, corruption, and criminal conflict of interest. Sannino and Mogherini did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the EEAS said he had no information.

Agnès Rogliano-Desideri's family was targeted by several internet users after the publication of an article about the adoption of their son Antoine, born in Congo-Brazzaville. Despite a wave of hate on social media, the mother says she is particularly touched by the numerous messages of support.

" Abject messages. "
On Tuesday, November 25, Corse Matin published an article on adoption in Corsica, featuring a main photo of Agnès Rogliano-Desideri and her son Antoine, born in Congo-Brazzaville. While the newspaper's article focused on the complexities of the adoption system on the island, some internet users concentrated on the high school student's skin color. On social media, racist remarks flooded in, directly targeting the 16-year-old and his family. " I expected strong reactions, but not to this extent ," the mother confided. " I saw horrible messages, several of them sexual in nature. "

Faced with this wave of hatred, Agnès Rogliano-Desideri's family was torn between grief and incomprehension. " The first thing Antoine said to me was 'I don't understand ,'" recounts the woman from Bastia. " In his daily life, he was never targeted because of his skin color. At football, catechism, the conservatory, or high school, my son was able to live normally, without facing racism. We always warned him and reassured him, which allows him today to take a step back from all of this. "

A "lack of knowledge of the adoption system"

Among the comments, while some are explicitly hateful, others question Agnès Rogliano-Desideri and her husband's choice to adopt a child born in Africa rather than in France. These criticisms exasperate the mother: as president of the Corsican branch of Enfance & familles d'adoption (EFA2B), the Bastia native points out "the lack of knowledge many people have about the adoption system . Very few French children are eligible for adoption ," explains Agnès Rogliano-Desideri. " Many children in foster care should, in my opinion, be adopted in their best interests, but the fact is, currently, they are not. " In the rare cases where adoption is possible, the process takes an average of four to five years to complete, according to Child Welfare Services.

My name is Maya, and I wanted to take a moment to express my deepest gratitude to Holt International for the life-changing role you played in my story.

Maya on her wedding day.

I spent my early life at BSSK in Pune, India, and it was through Holt’s compassion and commitment that I was given the incredible gift of a family and a future. 

From the care I received in the orphanage to the dedicated work of your team who helped make my adoption possible, I will always be thankful for the love, hope and opportunity you brought into my life.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said his partner Shivon Zilis is half-Indian. Appearing on Zerodha founder Nikhil Kamath's "WTF is?" podcast, the billionaire also revealed that the middle name of one of his sons with Zilis is Sekhar, named after Indian-American physicist and Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. 

In short:

Survivors of historical forced adoption practices are calling for South Australia to establish a state-based redress scheme. 

Tasmania recently became the second state, after Victoria, to announce such an initiative. 

What's next?

The SA government says it remains committed to supporting those affected, but declined to say whether it will establish a redress scheme in the future. 

Verity's breaking point with her adopted son Liam came after she had already been threatened with knives and arrested by police following untrue allegations.

Her husband Ian recounts that she said at one point to a social worker: "What if we just can't do this any more?" He says the social worker's reply came without a moment's hesitation: "You'll be prosecuted for child abandonment."

Verity and Ian are just two of 50 parents the BBC has spoken to during a six-month investigation into why adoptive families are being broken apart and their children returned to care.

It has uncovered a hidden world where parents are subjected to lies and blame by authorities across the UK, as they struggle with the needs of traumatised children who have often suffered abuse and neglect before they were removed from their birth families.

Parents speak of being threatened, harassed and pushed into mental health crisis, while one adopted teenager who returned to care says that with more support his family might still be together now.

From 10 to 14 November 2025, the Working Group (WG) on Parentage / Surrogacy met for the fifth time. The meeting, held in hybrid format, had over 45 registered delegates and other experts, representing 24 HCCH Members and three Observers, in addition to members of the Permanent Bureau of the HCCH.

Pursuant to its mandate, the WG continued its consideration of draft provisions for one new instrument on legal parentage generally, including legal parentage following an international surrogacy arrangement, and finalised its report for the Council on General Affairs and Policy (CGAP).

The WG will present its Final Report on the Feasibility of a possible Convention on the Recognition of Judgments on Legal Parentage to CGAP in March 2026.

More information is available on the Parentage / Surrogacy Section of the HCCH website.