PARENTS AGREE TO KEEP KIDS WITH UNCLE

New Delhi/ Oslo, March 23: After their much-publicised flipflops, NRI couple Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya have signed an agreement to hand over their children to their uncle Arunabhash, with India pressing the point that the best bet for children would be to bring them up in an Indian cultural milieu.

“Both parents have agreed to hand over the children to the uncle. The agreement was signed today (Friday) and will be handed over to the Norwegian child care service,” the counsel of the NRI couple told a news channel.

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, Abhigyan, 3, and Aishwarya, 1, on grounds that there were no credible guardians for them.

The children living in Norway’s Stavanger, were taken under protective care by Barnevarne (Norwe-gian Child Welfare Services) last May on the ground that they were not looked after properly by their parents.

Meanwhile, Norway on Friday said it was willing to look for “new solutions”. “Although today’s hearing was cancelled, this does not affect the child welfare’s willingness to look for new solutions,” Thomas Bore Olsen, Communication Adviser in the Municipality of Stavanger, said. — IANS, PTI