Indian children are finally back home after one year nightmare in Norway

At last, the torture is over! The Indian Government did a good job. It really cared for its citizens, and is worthy of praise and great respect. Not many governments in the world do such things for their people.

Norway children make it home to India after parents’ year-long battle

A Year-long legal battle and diplomatic exchanges finally bore fruit as the two NRI children, kept in foster care by Norwegian authorities, reached the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Tuesday morning.

Norway kids custody: NRI toddlers return to India after 1 year ordeal

After nearly a year in foster care in Norway, two NRI toddlers, separated from their parents on grounds of negligence, arrived in India on April 24 to an emotional welcome following a prolonged custody battle and diplomatic pressure by India.

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The children were taken away from their parents –Anurup and Sagarika Bhattacharya — by Norway’s Child Welfare Services in May last year on grounds of ‘emotional disconnect’ and negligence. However, the parents of the children denied the charges saying it was a case of cultural misunderstanding.

…

Kaur, who received the children at the airport too expressed happiness. “The grandparents are very happy to see the kids. The family is relieved,” she said.

In Kolkata, a relieved grandfather of the children Monotosh Chakravorty thanked the government and media for their sustained efforts in ensuring their release.

“I have been waiting for this day. I have been fighting to see their return. And now actually that has happened..we are very much happy,” he said. The two children later headed for Kolkata.

The External Affairs Ministry had mounted diplomatic pressure on Norway to ensure return of the kids to India after the case received wide attention in the media. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had taken up the matter with his Norwegian counterpart during the Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul last month.

Norway custody row over, kids back in India

Soon after the children returned to India, External Affairs Minister S.K. Krishna stated that he was “delighted to welcome” them back home.

“They belong to India. They are Indian nationals,” he said, expressing the confidence that their uncle “will take care of them in the environment of their extended family in India.”

Bad code

bad code n. An ugly program. Pretty much every program ever written is bad code. Most developers figure that if architects made buildings the way programmers write code, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.

USAGE: Typically, any program not written by oneself will be referred to as “bad code.”

– Jack Ganssle, Michael Barr, Embedded Systems Dictionary

Fog in the mountains

In Sinhala:

Fog — miiduma
Fog is beautiful — miiduma lassanay
It is raining — wahinawa
Unplug your laptop. The lightning may burn it — oyage laptop eka off karanna. akunu nisa eka pichchei
I like dancing in the rain like they do in Indian movies — man asai wasse natanna, hindi chithrapati wala wage

Where to stay in Badulla, Sri Lanka

This post is for tourists who are planning to visit Badulla. I took pictures of some hotels’ sign boards with their phone numbers.

You can call them to book a room or ask questions.

Wishing you a pleasant stay in Badulla!

Playing kasiya sewiima in the rain

Kasiya sewiima — searching for the coin

Kasiya — coin
sewiima — searching
soyanawa, hoyanawa — to search

Avurudu Sweets

Avurudu Uthsawaya in Hali Ela

Avurudu — New year
Uthsawaya — celebration
Hali Ela — a town in the Uva province

To find where it is, I had to ask locals: Avurudu uthsawaya thiyenne koheda? — Where is Avurudu Uthsawaya?

Nila

In Sri Lanka, this is called nila. In Russian speaking countries, it’s called “Bengali lights”.

What is the origin of these lights?

Sinhala tongue twisters

Samarage sarame samara.

Chuti teacher-ge chuti torch-eka.

Rathu chiiththa dejathiyai.

If you know more tongue twisters, please send them to me.

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Samara — a boy’s name
samara — dye
sarame — sarong
chuti — small
rathu — red
chiiththa — a ladies’ sarong
dejathiyai — two types

Our neighbors: The University of Dhaka

Students in the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. I like their dress.

They are our neighbors. We should develop more collaboration between our universities.

The photo is taken from the travelogue of a Russian blogger Alexander Lapshin. Click here for more pictures of the university.

Alexander Lapshin is a famous Russian blogger and traveler who has visited almost a hundred countries. Now he is traveling in the South East Asia and soon will be on a short visit to Sri Lanka.

He has already been to Sri Lanka a few years ago, you can find his stories in his blog.

He writes in Russian but with Google Translate or Babel Fish it should not be a problem to read his texts.