Indian, Norwegian PMs to meet, may discuss NRI kids custody issue

New Delhi, Mar.24 (ANI): The Prime Ministers of India and Norway, Dr. Manmohan Singh and Jens Stoltenberg, are likely to meet on the sidelines of a nuclear security summit in Seoul, South Korea, and are likely to discuss the NRI kids custody issue.

Sources said that Singh and Stoltenberg are likely to have a pull aside meeting on the margins of the summit.

Singh's expected meeting with Stolenberg comes amid reports that the Norway-based NRI couple Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya has agreed to end their differences.

Reports said that the couple has inked an agreement that allows their kids paternal uncle to get custody.

The authorities in Stavanger, Norway, are expected to come out with a final decision soon. vein Kjetil Svendsen, a lawyer representing Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya, said that the couple has reached an agreement that will be presented to the Child Welfare Service.

The renewed pact offers a way out of the impasse the custody case had reached after marital problems between the parents became public and the Norwegian authorities refused to hand over the two NRI children on grounds that there were no credible guardians for them.

Abhigyan, 3, and Aishwarya, 1, children of the couple living in Norway's Stavanger, were taken under protective care by Barnevarne (Norwegian Child Welfare Services) last May on the ground that they were not looked after properly by their parents.

Over a month ago, India and Norway had struck an agreement under which the parents named Anurup's brother Arunabhash Bhattacharya as the primary caretaker of the two children.

The parents' marital problems and the disclosure about the mother's unstable mental condition left the Indian Government embarrassed, as it had pulled out all diplomatic stops to pressure the Norwegian authorities to help children return to India in the care of their extended family. (ANI)