Gujarat passport office "adds" to woes of abandoned children, doesn't know birth certificate isn't mandatory

By A Representative
Does the passport office in Gujarat, widely proclaimed as a “model” state, not know that orphan/abandoned children are exempted from the mandatory requirement of submission of a birth certificate along with passport application form? It would seem so if what happened on Friday is any indication.
A senior activist of Ahmedabad-based non-government organization (NGO), who has adopted a girl child, has told Counterview that she approached the Gujarat passport office for finding out the procedure for getting a passport for her, but was "shocked" to find later that the officials do not know about it.
“Today, I went to passport office and they said they will not proceed without a birth certificate – I was about to file a writ and came across a government notification, about which the passport officials not aware”, the activist said.
“Now I want other parents to know so that they are not harassed”, the activist said, adding, “Those of us who adopt such children struggle hard for getting passports of our kids, for which they insist on birth certificates which is not available – so people end up bribing, finding various means for getting one.”
Saying that all this is clearly “psychologically damaging for the mother as well as the child”, the activist quoted from the Ministry of External Affairs notification, dated May 26, 2015, which says that the birth certificate is no longer necessary if the child is an orphan or has been abandoned, provided she or he is born on or after January 26, 1989.
The notification (click HERE) says that, the ministry in its circular dated February 14, 1989, had decided that all the applicants born or after January 26, 1989, would “mandatorily require to provide a birth certificate issued by the Municipal Authority or the Registrar of Births & Deaths as proof of date of birth along with the passport application form.”
The May 2015 notification says, “In the recent past, a number of references have been received from various orphanages/childcare homes and legal experts highlighting the plight of those orphan/abandoned children born on or after January 26, 1989, who could not get the passport facilities in the absence of mandatory birth certificate in support of their date of birth proof.”
“Such children are unable to obtain the birth certificates as the names of biological parents are not known to them and the precise date of birth cannot be ascertained”, the notification says, adding, “Various representations have been received in the Ministry for relaxing the statutory condition of production of birth certificate for passport in respect of such orphan/abandoned children.”
On considering such requests/representations, the notification says, “It has been decided that the Passport Issuing Authorities (PIAs) while processing the case of orphan/abandoned children born on or after January 26, 1989”, may consider providing any of the optional certificates along with their passport application.
These include:

Copy of the birth certificate, or
Date of birth recorded in the matriculation certificate issued by duly recognized/affiliated educational institution along with the bonafide certificate duly sworn by the Head of the orphanage/childcare home (in case of minor) or by applicant himself (in case of major) before the First Class Judicial Magistrate/Executive Magistrate categorically stating his/her date of birth/place of birth; or
Declaratory Court order issued by the court of competent jurisdiction recording the date of birth/place of birth of such an applicant in the order.

Insisting that “all PIAs In India and abroad are requested to comply with the above instructions”, the notification has been signed by India’s Chief Passport Officer.

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

From protest to proof: Why civil society must rethink environmental resistance

By Shankar Sharma* As concerned environmentalists and informed citizens, many of us share deep unease about the way environmental governance in our country is being managed—or mismanaged. Our complaints range across sectors and regions, and most of them are legitimate. Yet a hard question confronts us: are complaints, by themselves, effective? Experience suggests they are not.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Kolkata event marks 100 years since first Communist conference in India

By Harsh Thakor* A public assembly was held in Kolkata on December 24, 2025, to mark the centenary of the First Communist Conference in India , originally convened in Kanpur from December 26 to 28, 1925. The programme was organised by CPI (ML) New Democracy at Subodh Mallik Square on Lenin Sarani. According to the organisers, around 2,000 people attended the assembly.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

Transgender Bill testimony of Govt of India's ‘contempt’ for marginalized community

Counterview Desk India’s civil society network, National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM)* has said that the controversial transgender Bill, passed in the Rajya Sabha on November 26, which happened to be the 70th anniversary of the Indian Constitution, is a reflection on the way the Government of India looks at the marginalized community with utter contempt.

Search This Blog