NO BIAS AMONG FOREIGNER COUPLES

LUDHIANA: A two-year-old girl suffering from thalassemia at an orphanage in Talwandi Khurd village near Ludhiana has found a home in the US, where a couple, whose biological son is also suffering from the same disease, has adopted her.

The child undergoes blood transfusion every month.

Two sisters and a brother brought up here have also found a home abroad with a childless couple in Italy deciding to adopt all three of them.

They are among the nine children who are being adopted by parents in countries such as the US, Canada, Italy, France and Spain.

Kuldeep Singh Mann, patron of the centre run by Swami Ganganand Bhuriwale International Foundation at Dham Talwandi Kurd, says he is grateful that these foreigners don’t nurse any gender bias.

As many as 69 destitute children, 55 girls and 14 boys, have been adopted from this orphanage in the past two years.

Mann hopes that with time, the bias will melt away, especially among the urban educated class. “We’ve had cases of a few bureaucrats and even two politicians from Punjab coming forward to adopt girls,” says Mann.

NINE CENTRES

Punjab has nine adoption centres regulated by CARA. They include one each in Faridkot, Muktsar, Bathinda, Patiala and Amritsar. Ludhiana and Jalandhar have two orphanages each.