Sumit Pande, New Delhi: Hollywood actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who were in India to shoot for a film last year also wanted to adopt a child in the country.

But the tedious adoption laws for foreign nationals made them seek a child ultimately in Vietnam.

"Yes, we are now changing not only the adoption laws but also the guardianship laws,” says Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Choudhary.

The adoption process in the country is basically guided by a Supreme Court judgment of 1984 in which makes it mandatory for all foreigners including NRIs to be sponsored by a licensed adoption agency in their own country. It further says that this agency must also be permitted to work in India.

What follows is a long process whereby you get guardianship first and then he/she is allowed actual adoption of the child this process, which at times could takes years is being made shorter.

"We are making efforts to make this discrimination easier,” says Chairman, Central Adoption Resource Agency (CARA), J K Mittal.

An interesting aspect of the adoptions by foreign nationals has been their preference to adopt the girl child. However, this trend is quite opposite of the domestic adoptions where the male child are generally the chosen ones.

The government therefore, while reviewing adoption laws in the country, is also looking to rectify this gender discrimination even in adoptions.