Have we ever wondered why the highways and roads in developed countries like the US, UK, Japan, and Australia are so good while they are plagued with potholes in our country? A new road that is built today is often filled with potholes and susceptible to damages a few months …
Read More »Hands to create should be used
When I was in high school, I had a teacher who said that “hill people are lazy”. Maybe he did not mean to say we did not work. Maybe he meant the phrase for our attitude towards work. For him, the social work in Bhutanese schools was unproductive work as students lacked dignity of labor. As most philosophers …
Read More »But who is the ‘concerned person’?
Note: Instances of my experiences cannot be generalized. It is commendable how our government has opened its door for the media. I cannot imagine if my other journalist friends around the world would access their Prime Minister at odd hours, or chat up with ministers on phone and facebook. If …
Read More »Trying Times
The critical shortage and rationing of the Indian rupees is making newspaper headlines and engaging people in serious debate. The good point is that both the government and people have woken up for the first time to this looming crisis. The bad point is that there is no immediate and …
Read More »Nepotism – a rampant and spreading social evil
“Nepotism” is a word much talked about in Bhutanese circles. I have never experienced it myself though I have heard about it and seen a few cases myself. To share an incident which I witnessed, I had gone to the hospital with a friend of mine to meet her grandmother …
Read More »Why Business Process Outsourcing is not catching up in Bhutan?
‘Outsourcing’ is the catch word today in business circles. The swift and rapid proliferation of globalization and liberalization has revolutionalized global business as it is conducted today. There are some explicit reasons why Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the answer for many companies venturing into international business. The first objective …
Read More »Having a right and using a right is quite different –Proposed RTI Bill
On 16th March, 2012 I submitted the draft bill on Right to Information to the Honorable Chairperson of the National Council with the objective of fulfilling a constitutional provision articulated under article 7 which states right to information as a fundamental right of every Bhutanese citizen. While the constitution provides …
Read More »WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF INTELLECTUAL SNOBS
I will be candid: There exist few intellectuals but more than a few intellectual snobs. Who are they? Books, you name it and they have read it (As for me, I did not even have the patience to go through Salman Rushdie’s “Midnight’s Children.” I thought it was “too heavy …
Read More »The greatest resource of all is still the human brain
Every so often someone asks me: “What’s your favorite country, other than your own?” I›ve always had the same answer: Taiwan. “Taiwan? Why Taiwan?” people ask.Very simple: Because Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea with no natural resources to live off of — it even has …
Read More »Part-3 How RTI can help achieve GNH
6. Education This is another example of an area where the people and the government can work together, and make transparency legislation twice as powerful. Education is the fastest growing demand amongst most sections of society, but most especially amongst the weaker sections, and it is largely up to the …
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The Bhutanese Leading the way.