60% of children adopted in India in last 6 years were girls, reveals RTI plea

Agencies
May 6, 2018

New Delhi, May 6: Nearly 60 per cent of children adopted in the last six years were girls across states in India, led by Maharashtra which also recorded the highest number of adoptions in recent years, government data showed. Of the 3,276 children adopted in the country in 2017-18, a total of 1,858 were girls, the data showed.

In reply to an RTI filed by this correspondent on the number of adoptions in every state since 2012, Child Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) said Maharashtra was at the forefront in adopting girls. The number of girls adopted in 2017 was 353 out of a total of 642 adoptions in the state.

Karnataka followed with 286 adoptions, 167 of them girls, CARA, the apex body for adoption in the country, said.

Maharashtra's high score was not just because of the size of the state, but because of the large number of adoption agencies there, said CARA CEO Lieutenant Colonel Deepak Kumar. "Maharashtra has the highest number of adoption agencies in the country at 60 while other states that are bigger have on an average 20 adoption agencies," he said.

In 2017-18, there was an increase in the number of in-country adoptions. Of the 3,276 children adopted within India, 1,858 were girls and 1,418 boys, according to the data given in response to the RTI query.

The inter-country adoption also saw an increase, with the number rising from 578 in 2016-17 to 651 in 2017-18. In 2017-18, most adoptions of Indian children were by families in the US, Italy, France and Spain, Kumar said.

In 2016-2017, out of the 3,210 children adopted within India, 1,915 or almost 60 per cent were girls.

Maharashtra (711) and Karnataka (252) again recorded the highest numbers, followed by West Bengal (203).

Data for the past five years showed that on an average, 59.77 per cent of couples adopted a girl and 40.23 per cent a boy.

"This reflects that things are changing now. Moreover, people feel that it is easier to manage a girl child than a boy, and that's another big plus point for the girl child to be considered for adoption," Kumar said.

Kumar refuted reports that more girls were adopted because many more of them were given away for adoption.

"It is not that availability of the girl child is higher but that parents are opting more for a girl child. We give them three choices - one can either opt for a girl or a boy or can give no preference...The percentage of those opting specifically for girls to boys would be 55:45," he said.

Similar trends were observed for the years since 2012, the period the RTI query focused on.

Of the 5,002 adoptions in 2012-13, 3,050 were girls, and of 4,354 in 2013-14, 2,601 were girls.

In 2014-15, 2,555 of the 4,362 children adopted were girls while in 2015-16, 2,295 of the 3,677 adopted were girls.

Even states with low sex ratios such as Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, couples were opting for adopting girls.

In Haryana, 31 girls and 19 boys were adopted while in Uttar Pradesh, 86 girls and 40 boys were adopted in 2016-17, according to the data.

The data come amid a recent report by NITI Aayog which said the sex ratio at birth (SRB) in India had seen a decline in 17 out of the 21 large states.

The report which stressed on the need to check sex-selective abortion said among the 17 states were those that recorded a substantial drop of 10 points or more.

In Gujarat the SRB fell to 854 females from 907 females per 1,000 males born, registering a drop of 53 points from 2012-14 (base year) to 2013-15 (reference year).

Kumar welcomed the trend of more girls being adopted, but also acknowledged issues related with adoption of children in India.

"In foreign countries, the domestic adoption process is through a lot of other programmes such as sponsorship and foster care. Many children who are in foster care are subsequently adopted. India also has a foster care programme but it has not really taken on because of the mindset of the people," Kumar said.

He said most people who wished to adopt children did not want a child who was older than 4 or 5 years of age.

"So the probability of a child getting adopted almost diminishes to negligible domestically if the child crosses the age of 5-6 years. I have 20,000 parents registered but we have very few children of a younger age who are legally free for adoption," he said.

The other issue was people's reluctance to adopt a child with special needs.

"We in India don't want to adopt a child with special needs while in foreign countries, people are open to it because they have a better healthcare facility and the government support is much higher," Kumar said.

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News Network
February 10,2020

New Delhi, Feb 10: Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah's sister on Monday moved the Supreme Court to challenge his detention under the Public Safety Act.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioner, mentioned the matter for urgent listing before a bench headed by Justice N V Ramana.

Sibal told the bench that they have filed a habeas corpus petition challenging the detention of Abdullah under the PSA and the matter should be heard this week.

The bench agreed for urgent listing of the matter.

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News Network
June 1,2020

Washington, Jun 1: Police fired tear gas outside the White House late Sunday as major US cities were put under curfew to suppress rioting as anti-racism protestors again took to the streets to voice fury at police brutality.

With the Trump administration branding instigators of six nights of rioting as domestic terrorists, there were more confrontations between protestors and police and fresh outbreaks of looting.

Violent clashes erupted repeatedly in a small park next to the White House, with authorities using tear gas, pepper spray and flash bang grenades to disperse crowds who lit several large fires and damaged property.

Local US leaders appealed to citizens to give constructive outlet to their rage over the death of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis, while night-time curfews were imposed in cities including Washington, Los Angeles and Houston.

One closely watched protest was outside the state capitol in Minneapolis' twin city of St. Paul, where several thousand people gathered before marching down a highway.

"We have black sons, black brothers, black friends, we don't want them to die. We are tired of this happening, this generation is not having it, we are tired of oppression," said Muna Abdi, a 31-year-old black woman who joined the protest.

"I want to make sure he stays alive," she added in reference to her son, aged three.

Hundreds of police and National Guard troops were deployed ahead of the protest.

At one point, some of the protestors who had reached a bridge were forced to scramble for cover when a truck drove at speed after having apparently breached a barricade.

The driver was later taken to hospital after the protestors hauled him from the vehicle, although there were no immediate reports of other casualties.

There were other large-scale protests in cities including New York and Miami.

Washington's mayor ordered a curfew from 11:00 pm until 6:00 am, as a report in the New York Times said that President Donald Trump had been rushed by Secret Service agents into an underground bunker at the White House on Friday night during an earlier protest.

Stores ransacked

Large-scale violence has rocked many US cities in recent days, and looters ransacked stores in a neighborhood of Philadelphia on Sunday.

In the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, looting was reported at stores in a popular beachside shopping center.

Officials in LA -- a city scarred by the 1992 riots over the police beating of Rodney King, an African-American man -- imposed a curfew from 4:00 pm Sunday until dawn.

"Please, use your discretion and go early, go home, stay home and help us make sure that those who want to change this conversation from being about racial justice to be about burning things and looting things, don't win the day," the city's mayor Eric Garcetti said on CNN.

The shocking videotaped death last Monday of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, at the hands of police in Minneapolis ignited the nationwide wave of outrage over law enforcement's repeated use of lethal force against unarmed African Americans.

Floyd stopped breathing after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes.

Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and is due to make his first appearance in court on Monday. Three other officers with him have been fired but for now face no charges.

Governor Tim Walz has mobilized all of Minnesota's National Guard troops  -- the state guard's biggest mobilization ever -- to help restore order.

Police fired tear gas and stun grenades to clear streets of curfew violators Saturday night in Minneapolis.

Walz extended a curfew for a third night Sunday and praised police and guardsmen for holding down violence. "They did so in a professional manner. They did so without a single loss of life and minimal property damage," he said.

"Congratulations to our National Guard for the great job they did immediately upon arriving in Minneapolis, Minnesota, last night," President Donald Trump tweeted, adding that they "should be used in other States before it is too late!"

The Department of Defense said that around 5,000 National Guard troops had been mobilized in 15 states as well as the capital Washington, with another 2,000 on standby.

The widespread resort to uniformed National Guards units is rare, and it evoked disturbing memories of the rioting in US cities in 1967 and 1968 in a turbulent time of protest over racial and economic disparities.

Trump blamed the extreme left for the violence, saying he planned to designate a group known as Antifa as a terrorist organization.

"The violence instigated and carried out by Antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly," added Attorney General Bill Barr.

'A nation in pain'

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Trump, who has often urged police to use tough tactics, was not helping matters.

"We are beyond a tipping point in this country, and his rhetoric only enflames that," she said on CBS.

Joe Biden, Trump's likely Democratic opponent in November's presidential election, visited the scene of one anti-racism protest.

"We are a nation in pain right now, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us," Biden tweeted, posting a picture of him speaking with an African-American family at the site where protesters had gathered in Delaware late Saturday.

Floyd's death has triggered protests beyond the United States, with hundreds rallying outside the US embassy in London in solidarity.

"I'm here because I'm tired, I'm fed up with it. When does this stop?" Doreen Pierre told AFP at the protest.

In Germany, England football international Jadon Sancho marked one of his three goals for Borussia Dortmund against Paderborn by lifting his jersey to reveal a T-shirt bearing the words "Justice for George Floyd".

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Agencies
May 26,2020

In a startling revelation, cybersecurity researchers have claimed that a hacker has posted personal details of nearly 2.9 crore Indian job seekers at one of the hacking forums on the Dark Web for free.

As part of the regular sweep over the Deep Web and Dark Web, researchers from cybersecurity firm Cyble came across an interesting item, where a threat actor posted 2.3GB (zipped) file on one of the hacking forums.

"The leak actually has a lot of personal details of millions of Indians Job seekers from different states," Cyble said in its blog on Friday.

This breach includes sensitive information such as email, phone, home address, qualification and work experience etc from job seekers spanning across states, from New Delhi to Mumbai and Bengaluru. 

Cybercriminals are always on the lookout for such personal information to conduct various nefarious activities such as identity thefts, scams, and corporate espionage.

"It appears to have originated from a resume aggregator service given the sheer volume and detailed information," it added.

Cyble indexed this information at ‘AmIbreached.com; – Cyble's data breach monitoring and notification platform.

Cyble researchers have identified a sensitive data breach on the dark web where an actor has leaked personal details of nearly 29 million Indian job seekers from various states. 

"Cyble's team is still investigating this further and will be updating their article as they bring more facts to the surface,” it said in a statement.

Cyble said it has acquired the leaked data. 

The same cyber security firm earlier exposed that Bengaluru-based edtech firm Unacademy was hacked.

According to Cyble researchers, nearly 22 million Unacademy user accounts were affected and the data was dumped and sold on Dark Web.

'We would like to assure our users that no sensitive information such as financial data or location has been breached," said Hemesh Singh, Co- Founder and CTO, Unacademy, in a statement.

In April, hackers sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros) that includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers.

No passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to Cyble.

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