International Sources

Teen transvestite gets Bhutan thinking about sex - Reuters
THIMPHU (Reuters Life!) - In Bhutan, the men wear gowns and often carry women’s names, but this has not stopped a teenage transvestite from causing a stir by publicly coming out in this tiny, secluded Himalayan kingdom. Names in Bhutan are often …

Everett Theatre - Everett Herald
• Next hit to your shopping list? Chicken and por… A refugee is a person who is unsafe in his or her home country due to documented persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political persuasion or affiliation with a specific social …

PM to address Bhutan parliament - Tribune
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh begins his two-day visit to Bhutan on May 16 where he will have the honour of being the first international leader to address a joint session of the newly constituted Bhutanese parliament. Singh’s visit will coincide …

Manmohan Singh to address Bhutan’s new parliament - New Kerala
By Pranay Sharma, New Delhi, May 11 : Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will address a joint session of the newly constituted Bhutanese parliament during his visit to the country May 16. He will be the first international leader to be given this honour …

Media expected to monitor historic govt: Bhutan PM - MSN India
Thimphu, May 12 (IANS) Bhutanese Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigme Y. Thinley has said the media and people of the Himalayan kingdom would play the role of a watchdog to monitor the performance of the government in the absence of a formidable opposition …

Bhutanese debate over study of Sanskrit - Zee News
Thimphu, May 11: Sanskrit may be a great subject for holistic studies but it isn’t relevant at all to the job market, feel Bhutanese. The Institute of Language and Cultural Studies (ILCS) at Semtokha in Bhutan introduced a degree programme in 1999 …

Bhutanese debate over studying Sanskrit - NDTV
Sanskrit may be a great subject for holistic studies but it isn’t relevant at all to the job market, feel Bhutanese. The Institute of Language and Cultural Studies (ILCS) at Semtokha in Bhutan introduced a degree programme in 1999. On Sunday, after …

Packages to the world’s top hiking destinations - MSNBC
For outdoorsy types and adventurers out there, we’ve scoured the world for the top hiking destinations that are bound to get your adrenaline going. What we found is a trio of excellent packages to get you to legendary trekking spots – the Inca …

Prioritizing food production, the RDTC way - Kuensel Online
12 May, 2008 - When Pasang Wangmo dropped out of class 10, she stayed home to help the family manage its small dairy farm of three jersey cows and a few other local cattle in Kabjisa, Punakha. As a daily routine, she fed the herd, milked them and …

Pinoy booters eye AFC Challenge crown in Iloilo - ABS-CBN
The Philippine team is determined to win the crown in the Asian Football Club Challenge Cup qualifying competition hosted by the province of Iloilo starting Tuesday. Although teams like Bhutan, Brunei and Tajikistan are considered some of the most …

Kuensel - Bhutan’s National Newspaper

The Mother of all Days

12 May, 2008 - As the old saying goes: God couldn’t be everywhere, so he created mothers. Yes mothers are, you could say, omnipresent, getting everything done to keep the home and family together.

You are the only one

12 May, 2008 - She carries us for nine months. No one can understand the pain she goes through during delivery. She sings lullabies, tells you a story when you are not able to fall asleep, and gives you a warm hug when you are down. She even understands the silence of a baby, the language that no one can understand.

The quiet cancer of the cervix

12 May, 2008 - Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in Bhutan after stomach cancer. It’s a silent disease, which develops in the lining of the cervix, the lower part of the uterus that enters the birth canal.

The very first bakery in town

Swiss Bakery 15 years ago

12 May, 2008 - Swiss Bakery is the first bakery to be operational in Bhutan. It was opened in 1970 to provide Bhutanese people a break from their regular rice diet.

Ten question

12 May, 2008 - Dechen Zam, 37, from Tongja, Trashiyangtse, is a homemaker and mother of three. She tells City Bytes how life is being a mother.

1. How long have you been married?
It’s been 15 years now.

Divided on dividers

12 May, 2008 - Hundreds of one-metre tall concrete blocks, used as road dividers along the widened Doebum lam, which stretches from the memorial chorten to Chubachu, has raised a lot of concern among Thimphu residents regarding pedestrian safety as well as its lack of aesthetic value.

Prioritizing food production, the RDTC way

The rural development training centre: Towards uplifting farmers

12 May, 2008 - When Pasang Wangmo dropped out of class 10, she stayed home to help the family manage its small dairy farm of three jersey cows and a few other local cattle in Kabjisa, Punakha.

As a daily routine, she fed the herd, milked them and sold the products at a local market. Three weeks ago, the 19-year-old went to Zhemgang to attend a course at the rural development training centre (RDTC).

A conversation with the Hong Kong ‘chimi’

Dr Brian C J Shaw

12 May, 2008 - Dr Brian C J Shaw, honorary research fellow at the centre for Asian studies, university of Hong Kong, has attended the National Assembly since the 1990s. Dr Shaw shares his views on the new parliament.

Bhutan Observer

Gelephu’s medicine man
Nine years ago, 65-year-old Jagir Man Ghalley cut off his own right middle finger and fixed it himself. He learned the art of medicine when he was 12. Later at the age of 18, he became a full-fledged medicine practitioner. He’s from Dekiling.
Jagir Man has treated more than a 100,000 people. “Sometimes  people from India […]

The last vestige of Shumar Drungpas
The crowning of the first Druk Gyalpo, Gongsar Ugyen Wangchuck, as the first hereditary king of Bhutan on 17 December brought to an end a period of intermittent civil war. Major administrative reforms took place in the country through the establishment of local administration under regional dzongpons and dzongtshabs.
Under such transformations, the people of Pemagatshel, […]

Incommunicado: losing your tongue?
I’m the great pretender. I eat, walk and sleep Dzongkha, yet I take pride in saying, “I can only write in English”
Trying to presume the garb of the hypocritical attitude of, “I only know how to correspond
in English and am poor in Dzongkha,” sounds a bit absurd sometimes. In striving to be what we are […]

Type of rose in the college garden
Floods of tear washed away the dreams of hopes that glimmered YOUNGDREL’s face. The abrupt end of nurtured relation turned out to be fake and dream turns to be a dream like. Good grounds of expectation become worst of all.
On the third day presence of Youngdrel in the College he resigned loving one bountiful lady […]

“The change: old habits die hard”
Everything in life is impermanent except the Change. If we can cope with it then true and long lasting happiness can be enhanced both for the present and the future. Change can ravage anybody’s sanity if untamed. The change must come and it is unavoidable but as human beings, we can nurture it for our […]

Everyday is a winding road
The government has toiled hard in creating schools even in remote areas to provide easier access to education, leading to an increase the numbers of children going to school, however, a mode of transportation is something that has been sidelined.
Its 5 am, Phub Dema and her younger brother, Kezang, are up. After a quick wash […]

The old man and the mani: an old wheel still in spin
Observer’s Kunga T Dorji meets a man without possessions. All he has is a mani
It’s breakfast time at the Punakha Higher Secondary School in Lekithang. As the students file up in the dining hall for their servings of fried rice and tea, a lone figure in a shabbily worn sun-bleached gho limps […]

The story of the times
I was born in the boondocks – an obscure village that is. No nurse delivered me for the health unit was too distant. Besides, there was the chance that she may not have been there at the time.
There was a school I attended rather late in my adolescence. Early learning was not possible because my […]

HM opens first parliament
His Majesty the King yesterday graced the first session of parliament under the democratic constitutional monarchy. In age-old tradition, His Majesty was received and escorted in a chibdrel ceremony to the parliament where the members of the political parties offered kusung thukten mendrel, followed by the zhugdrel phuensum tshogpai ceremony. During these auspicious ceremonies, the […]

Of distant lands and dreary procedures
The local area plans within the Thimphu municipal boundary have been complete – not so with land demarcation. That makes land allocation a very distant dream.
The Thimphu municipal boundary was identified from Olarongchhu through Ngaberongchhu
in Chang and Mewang geogs and the structure plan approved in 2002. Work on local area plans started right after.
Since then, […]

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