Adoption agency at it again, now charges ‘donations’

Source: http://www.expressindia.com
Nisha Nambiar

Posted: May 08, 2012 at 0108 hrs

Adoption agency at it again, now charges ‘donations’Preet Mandir, a Pune-based adoption agency that gained notoreity over alleged malpractices last year, is in the news again for reasons that seem as ignoble as the earlier charges. A CBI chargsheet notwithstanding, the agency, which has permission to give away only 40 children remaining at its Kalyaninagar unit for ‘in-country adoption’, has allegedly been accepting ‘donations’ from parents. This is in gross violation of Child Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) rules. (more…)

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Grandmother’s investigation plea against Preet Mandir dismissed

Date: 2012-01-05

Asseem Shaikh TNN

Pune: A special court’s refusal on Tuesday to issue direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation to further probe into the inter-country adoption racket, involving the city-based Preet Mandir, has left a 70-year-old woman distressed in her fight against the adoption centre to get back her two granddaughters.

Kisabai Tulsiram Lokhande, a resident of Khandala in Satara district, had handed over her granddaughters — Komal and Ashwini — to an observation home at Karad for taking care and providing education, following the death of their parents in 2004-05. However, the Satara child welfare committee without taking Lokhande’s consent shifted the girls to Preet Mandir for rehabilitation. (more…)

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BETTER STAY AWAY FROM PREETMANDIR, Mr BHASIN

Date:  2011-10-19
Kaumudi Gurjar
Special CBI judge takes serious note of MiD DAY expose, tells Preetmandir former managing trustee J S Bhasin not to violate court order again by entering orphanage premises
LESS than four months since a MiD DAY sting operation at the Preetmandir orphanage showed former managing trustee J S Bhasin violating a court order that had restrained him from entering the Preetmandir premises, Special CBI Judge D R Mahajan took serious note of the MiD DAY expose and warned Bhasin against repeating the act.
It may be recalled that even as the Preetmandir controversy over allegations of financial irregularities and child trafficking was raging and the case was being heard in courtrooms, MiD DAY had found Bhasin in the office of the adoption home. (more…)
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Maddona’s controversial adoption

September 13, 2011, 12:47 pm Dan McDougall

When Madonna first swept into the African nation of Malawi, chequebook in hand, she vowed to save its impoverished people. Five years later, she has brought them two controversial adoptions, broken promises and a charity caught up in a fraud investigation.

A flight of grey mourning doves scatters as dusk descends on the Malawian village of Zaone. On the edge of town, elderly matriarch Lucy Chekechiwa eats cold lumps of cassava root. Pinned to the wall of her one-room home is a grainy photograph of a woman and child. The woman is, unmistakably, Madonna; the baby she is clutching is Mercy James, Lucy’s granddaughter. The 62 year old hasn’t seen the girl, now five, since Madonna took her to London on a private jet in 2009. (more…)

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Bhasin’s Preet Mandir entry: Inquiry ordered

Source: http://www.mid-day.com

Women and Child Development Department takes note of court order violation by orphanage’s former managing trustee, asks District Women and Child Officer to submit report on incident

After a MiD DAY sting operation exposed the violation of a court order by Preet Mandir’s former managing trustee J S Bhasin, the Women and Child Development (WCD) Department yesterday took serious note of the matter and ordered an inquiry. Bhasin was found inside the adoption home’s office in spite of a special CBI court having granted him bail on the condition that he keep off the premises. MiD DAY carried the report yesterday (What are you doing in Preet Mandir, Mr Bhasin) with photographic evidence of Bhasin’s presence in the adoption home’s office. (more…)

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What are you doing in Preet Mandir, Mr Bhasin?

By: Parth Satam and Kaumudi Gurjar
Date: 2011-06-30
Place: Pune

Despite court order restraining Preet Mandir’s former managing trustee JS Bhasin — an accused in an adoption racket — from entering orphanage, MiD DAY finds him flipping through office files on the premises

Even as the Preet Mandir orphanage controversy rages on in courtrooms over allegations of financial irregularities and child trafficking, MiD DAY found former managing trustee J S Bhasin in the office of the adoption home yesterday despite a court order restraining him from being present on the premises. A MiD DAY reporter posing as a prospective adoptive parent photographed Bhasin, who was in jogging clothes, while he was seated in the orphanage with other office staff around 5.30 pm yesterday, flipping through office files. (more…)

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Adoption ‘Orphanage’ Preet Mandir

Since last 10 years Preet Mandir has been under suspicion of sourcing children from poor families and selling children for intercountry adoptions.

Advait Foundation from Mumbai & Sakhee from Pune filed a Criminal Writ Petitions against Preet Mandir in Mumbai High Court and High Court recently ordered CBI to reinvestigate, as a previous investigation had proven to be faulty and incomplete.  The order of reinvestigation was challenged by Preet Mandir in the Supreme Court of India and the same was dismissed, precipitating in continuing the reinvestigation in unearthing the crimes committed by Preet Mandir.

On 7 March 2011 six persons were charged with criminal conspiracy for child trafficking. 

The six accused are

  • former managing trustee of Preet Mandir Joginder Bhasin (72),
  • his wife Mahinder Bhasin (68),
  • son Gurpreet Singh (43),
  • Superintendent of Vasudev Babaji Navrange Balakashram of Pandharpur Vasudev Gangadhar Darshane (60),
  • social worker associated with Preetmandir’s Kalyaninagar unit Chandrashekar Admane (40) and
  • chairman of Child Adoption Resource Agency (CARA) Janindrakumar Mittal (55).

CHARGESHEET PREET MANDIR: AVAILABLE HERE

Related articles:

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Preet Mandir: Four get bail in adoption racket

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com 
 TNN | Apr 29, 2011, 12.06am IST
PUNE: The court of special judge S V Lathkar on Thursday granted bail to four suspects who are allegedly involved in an inter-country adoption racket.
 
The suspects include city-based Preet Mandir’s managing trustee Joginder Singh Bhasin’s wife Mahinder (68) and son Gurupreet (42), former social worker Chandrashekhar Admane (39) and J K Mittal (55), former chairman of the New Delhi-based Child Adoption Resource Agency. The CBI had chargesheeted Preet Mandir’s managing trustee Joginder Singh Bhasin and others after their alleged involvement in the racket had come to light. The CBI had investigated the case, following an order of the Bombay high court. (more…)
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Adoption cases: City activist files PIL against exposing unwed mothers

Posted: Tue Apr 12 2011
City-based child rights activist Jyoti Ronghe has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Bombay High Court raising the issue of non-government organisations – Adwait Foundation and Sakhee – exposing unwed mothers in adoption cases in the Preet Mandir case.

With reference to the Preet Mandir case, the petitioner along with her advocate Ajit Kulkarni in the PIL has objected to NGOs ignoring the directives of the Supreme Court wherein biological parents should not be contacted under any circumstances, once the period of 30 days is over after the execution of a relinquishment affidavit in the case of Laxmikant Pandey vs. Union of India case. “There has been violation of the rules in exposing the unwed mothers as has been done by the NGOs in the Preet Mandir case. The NGOs contacting the biological mothers/parents have created fear in the minds of the biological parents, expecially the unwed mothers, who may now out of fear of their identity being revealed, abandon the children and dump them in garbage bins rather than relinquish them to adoption agencies. The case was filed in the High Court on Wednesday and the hearing of the case has been scheduled for April 21. (more…)

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Madonna’s Charity Fails in Bid to Finance School

Source: http://www.nytimes.com 
Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: March 24, 2011

LOS ANGELES — A high-profile charitable foundation set up to build a school for impoverished girls in Malawi, founded by the singer Madonna and fellow devotees of a prominent Jewish mysticism movement, has collapsed after spending $3.8 million on a project that never came to fruition.

Madonna in Malawi in 2007. A group she helped found had planned to build a $15 million school there.

The board of directors of the organization, Raising Malawi, has been ousted and replaced by a caretaker board, including Madonna and her manager, officials with the organization said Thursday. Its executive director, who is the boyfriend of Madonna’s former trainer, Tracy Anderson, left in October amid criticism of his management style and cost overruns for the school. These included what auditors described as outlandish expenditures on salaries, cars, office space and a golf course membership, free housing and a car and driver for the school’s director. (more…)

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