The health secretary, Dasho Dr Gado Tshering, the resident representative of JICA, Tetsuo Yabe, and head of development cooperation division of the GNH commission, Thinley Namgyel, signed a project agreement on Monday.

Under the project, the Japanese government will supply vaccines and vaccine storage equipment, also called cold chain equipment. Japanese technical advisers will also train Bhutanese health workers. Japan has supported the health sector through EPI by supplying traditional vaccines like oral polio vaccines, measles and rubella, tetanus toxoid, diptheria tetanus, bacilli calmette guerin and related injection equipment since 1995.

The health secretary said that, since 1995, Bhutan’s health record indicated less number of people suffering from diseases such as polio, measles and tetanus and others.

“This was made possible with the Japanese government’s assistance to regular expanded program on immunisation,” he said. “The agreement will go a long way in supporting the Bhutanese by keeping them healthy, happy and also in achieving the goal of poverty reduction.”

Resident representative, Tetsuo Yabe, said that the Japanese government would continue their support to Bhutan in achieving the 10th plan goal of poverty alleviation.

“I think during their marriage they used to have small fights which, you know, used to have bad impact on us,” he told the BBC.

“They used to fight and you know my father used to put hands on my mother. So it was quite bad to see that.”

We meet in the studio where Barun works – a collective of artists in the Bhutanese capital, Thimphu, its walls plastered with brightly coloured pictures.

At least one of his colleagues joins in the conversation saying he, too, comes from a family affected by divorce. Marriage break-ups are common in this tiny kingdom. So, too, are love marriages, not arranged by one’s family.

Pregnant

In both these ways Bhutan differs from its neighbours like India, Bangladesh and Nepal; this is a region where divorce is rare and carries a stigma.

A few blocks away Tshering does a completely different job. Now in her late 20s, she says she got divorced after a three-year marriage, having got pregnant while in college.

“To have a baby without a father is not very acceptable in Bhutan,” she says. “We got married and we tried to compromise and we tried to make it work. [But] we kept fighting for small little things.

“At the same time we barely spoke to each other. So it wasn’t a very healthy environment for a child to grow up in. So we talked it over and we just had a very clean and peaceful divorce – it wasn’t ugly at all.”

Thimphu is an attractive, orderly city set in a valley of pine forests. By world standards it is a very small capital. A recent press article on social trends said, however, that the town had nearly 700 divorce cases in its courts over a four-year period.

Many causes were cited, including alcoholism, infidelity, domestic violence – and plain incompatibility. There were many more cases that did not come to court. And the divorce rate is rising.

It is the kind of trend many would associate with urbanisation – but Bhutan is urbanising less quickly than its neighbours.

Barun Gurung relates it to the fact that people here “are quite easy-going and a little laid-back” and that, compared with, say, India, women here are treated more on a par with men.

But the attitude to marriage itself is also unusual.

In this Buddhist-dominated society, in both rural and urban settings, many people tie the nuptial knot in a more casual, less ceremonial way, than elsewhere. There is also a long tradition of people starting to live together and, once they are clearly committed, being regarded as married.

Passang Dorji, a senior reporter at the Bhutan Times, cites his own situation.

“In Bhutan basically marriage is very mutual and practical,” he says. “It basically depends on a couple’s mutual consensus.”

He met his own wife – a teacher – in their primary school days. Later “she used to work in a very remote place and I used to go there and live with her. So basically our marriage didn’t have any ceremonies.

“So far our married life has been very good. We are parents of two and she is also a working mother.”

‘Puppy love’

It is a far cry from the lavish, sometimes cripplingly expensive, weddings common in the region.

Given that marriage is more low-key, and more often tied to romantic love than to parental choice, that might be a reason why it has become easier to leave it. And, says Passang, neither the man nor the woman is likely to be disdained.

“Her friends, her relatives, her parents would be there to help and sympathise with her,” he says.

“If by stigma someone is forced to live with the person she or he doesn’t like, I think it is not a meaningful life… Our system basically gives liberty for a person to practise a lifestyle that she or he prefers.”

But some think the tide should turn; that some young people are too careless and get married for reasons of “puppy love”.

Sangay Zam, a member of parliament, stresses that many Bhutanese do still revere and value the marriage institution. She feels that marriage break-ups are usually initiated by men and are too easy.

“If the men get the opportunity to pull the strings and have their say, they would naturally have divorces. And divorces are not so expensive, if you look at the law of the country.

“So I think some of the parliamentarians are taking it up to say that divorces shouldn’t be so cheap – there should be some cost factor so that people think twice before they think about divorces.”

Barun, the artist, now has both a stepmother and a stepfather – both his parents have remarried. He gets on well with both. But he too says divorce should be a last resort.

“If the relationship is not working out, I think it is better to get divorced. But if the relationship is working out and it’s just that you have a feeling for another girl or woman, it’s really bad.”

It is striking that this generally poor country seems, in some areas of life, to be following a path more akin to Western countries than its neighbours.

Tshering is glad that as a divorced mother she is not ostracised. But she is not in a hurry to marry again.

“I need a lot of time – to bring up my son, to focus on my career – so marriage is the last thing right now,” she says, laughing.

BBC NEWS

The Association of Bhutanese Tour Operators (ABTO) has said that over 1,500 tourists have cancelled their proposed trip to the country in 2009 following the financial crunch.

“More bad news may be in store. Even the ones coming in do not or will not stay long,” ABTO General Secretary Sonam Dorji said. ABTO is requesting “interim measures,” such as deferment of the planned tariff revision in 2009 from $200 to $250 till thin gs normalise, and concession on the royalty amount and national carrier Druk Air tickets. It also wants hotels to keep a lid on their annual tariff increase. Observers, however, think differently.

“Tourism is not an intensive investment business, not for the operators anyway. It is a more superior revenue-generating business than most, from comparably less investment,” an observer said. “Our tourism industry has had it good for a long time, they should be able to ride this storm, which too will pass,” the observer added.

According to the official records, over 30,000 foreign tourists visited Bhutan last year. In 2008, it generated $40 million royalty to the government. The country, with a population of under 750,000, has slowly eased up the rules for foreign tourists. E arlier, not many tourists were allowed to visit the country annually. – PTI

The Hindu Business Line :

McCain stopped in Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist kingdom nestled high in the Himalayas between IJohn McCain visited Bhutan on Thursdayndia and China, while on a tour of South Asia.

He was joined by Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, two frequent companions during his campaign for president.

Bhutan, known for its unique index that measures its citizens’ Gross National Happiness, is a beautiful place. It’s not a bad place for McCain to hang out while Washington is aflutter with the impending presidency of his former Democrat rival, Barack Obama.

The country was in the news earlier this year for its first-ever democratic elections, bringing an end to a 100-year-old monarchy. In 2002, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck voluntarily gave up absolute power and called for a constitutional democracy.

While in Bhutan, McCain, Lieberman and Graham met with the newly-elected officials, including the prime minister and chief justice. They also met with the new king, 28-year-old Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who functions mostly as a figurehead (he’s pictured with the senators above).

According to the Bhutan Observer, McCain praised the “extraordinary quality of leadership” in Bhutan at a press conference yesterday.

“We intend to encourage our friends and colleagues to get to know Bhutan better because I think it can serve as an example to many other parts of the world that have either tried and failed or are struggling towards freely electing democratic governments,” McCain said.

Graham was equally effusive. “We’ve travelled all over the world and I don’t think I have met a group of people that are more informed and have a more sophisticated view of the world and the region than the people here and the officials of Bhutan,” he said.

The senators then gave the Bhutanese a little advice.

“You can lose the election in America but not lose your voice, not lose your property; so I would encourage the government and the people to make sure that you have honest and fair judges, that the judiciary be above politics,” Graham said.

“I think it will serve this country well to have a strong legal system that will set people and property apart from politics,” he added.

Los Angeles Times

Bhutan held its first democratic elections in March for a new parliament and prime minister—over a year after King Jigme Singye Wangchuk willfully abdicated the throne to his son, ordered an end to absolute royal rule, and transitioned the country towards a constitutional monarchy. The newly crowned King Jigme Khesar was educated in the west and is credited for ushering in satellite TV to the nation.

A small, landlocked Himalayan country with approximately 600,000 citizens, Bhutan has always approached development and the influx of foreign influences cautiously. In 1972, while other developing nations focused on increasing their GDP, King Jigme Singye Wangchuk declared Bhutan’s development would be measured by Gross National Happiness (GNH).

Having seeing the negative impacts of mass tourism to its neighbor Nepal, the government implemented a policy of controlled and manageable tourism where all visitors (except of Indian nationality) must pay a fixed all-inclusive rate per day of their visit. Independent travel is not permitted in Bhutan. This policy continues to keep the financial return on tourism high and the social and cultural impacts low.

Bhutan’s development efforts were further encouraged by a recent UNDP report that revealed the country is on target with achieving the Millennium Development Goals to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

Despite its recent steps to modernize, King Jigme Khesar stressed at his coronation that the country will continue to measure development by Gross National Happiness (GNH) and not lose the “Bhutanese character” as the world changes so that future generations will live in happiness and peace.

However, as tourism continues to become a progressively viable source of income for a country where unemployment has tripled in the past three years, it will be a challenge for the new government and king not to consider modifying its tourism policies to generate more jobs in this sector.

Ethical Traveler: News

Seven persons would be conferred Desikottama by the Prime Minister at the December 6 convocation. Despite the situation after the Mumbai terror attack, Visva-Bharati officials are hopeful the PM would make it to Santiniketan.

Addressing the press on Sunday, Visva-Bharati V-C Rajat Kanta Roy declared the names of the recipients of the Desikottama once again, but he did not take the name of the former Bhutan king. “His name is not in this list. His name had been proposed, but it was deleted later,” Roy revealed.

Roy said such lists can be changed whenever required and even the present list could be changed. Roy blamed the media for publishing premature news of the inclusion of the former king among the honour’s recipients. The current list of seven includes economist and former V-B vice-chancellor Amlan Dutta, economist Jan Drez, historian Irfan Habib, theatre maestro Habib Tanvir, scholar Rodam Narashima, painter K G Subhramaniya and social activist Deviprasad. A couple of weeks ago, a highly placed

V-B official had told TOI that the former Bhutan king had been chosen as he had brought democracy to that country.

According to sources, two letters had been sent to the former king through the Bhutan embassy, informing him about the honour. But before sending the letter, the official formalities were not maintained. So finally, his name was dropped by the PMO. A V-B official said the letter should have been sent after receiving a clearance from the foreign affairs ministry.

The Times of India

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Namgyal offered prayers and the traditional butter lamps in the Tashichhodzong fortress here and also expressed solidarity with the government and people of India in their resolve to fight terror.

Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley, his Cabinet colleagues, Indian Ambassador to Bhutan Sudhir Vyas, parliamentarians and representatives from the international community and senior government officials also attended the prayer ceremony.

Terming the attacks as “barbaric”, Thinley said Bhutan shared the pain of the family members of the victims and the grief of the people of India.

“The Bhutanese people are equally aggrieved. Today, beginning with His Majesty we are expressing solidarity with the people of India by offering one thousand butter lamps,” said Thinley.

He said Bhutan will do everything to support India and work together to prevent such acts from occurring in future.

Meanwhile, Karma Tshomo, a law student from Samdrup Jongkhar district studying in Mumbai, was lucky as she had returned to her apartment barely half an hour before the siege at the Taj Hotel.

“I was so shocked because so many people died, nothing of this kind happens in Bhutan,” said Karma.

Of five Bhutanese students studying in Mumbai, Karma was the only one in the city during the attack, staying back for exams. The others had left three days earlier.

SamayLive

“I have a question,” Gautam says, holding up a bottle of shampoo. “Do I put this in my hair before going in the shower or after?”

Gautam, 19, his parents and his two siblings are among the first of about 5,300 ethnic Nepalese refugees from the tiny south Asian country of Bhutan who this year started leaving refugee camps to resettle in the United States. The U.S. has agreed to take in 60,000 of them.

Unlike other, high-profile refugee groups such as Iraqis and Burmese, the ethnic Nepalese have gone largely unnoticed. Since there are no Bhutanese communities in the United States, most are being resettled near cities like Pittsburgh, where housing is affordable and officials hope diverse populations will reinvigorate urban areas hurt by deindustrialization.

Charitable organizations responsible for resettlement get the families apartments, food, Social Security cards and English classes, and help them find jobs. After three months, the families will have to provide for themselves, usually working minimum wage jobs.

Bhutan is a predominantly Buddhist constitutional monarchy bordered by China and India. In the early 1990s, the monarchy instituted sweeping legislation that effectively stripped the ethnic Nepalese, a Hindu minority also known as the Lhotsampas, of their citizenship, their right to own property and their ability to get government jobs.

Since then, an estimated 100,000 ethnic Nepalis have fled to refugee camps.

Bhutan has significantly opened up in recent years, embracing democratic freedoms and coronating a young king on Nov. 1. Nevertheless, the tiny Himalayan kingdom remains tightly controlled. Traditional robes and colored sashes indicating class rank are mandatory and only 20,000 foreigners are permitted to enter the country annually on supervised trips.

Like most others in Bhutan, the Gautams were farmers. Chitra Prassad Gautam and his sister, Uma, 17, were born in Bhutan. Their younger brother, Raju, 15, is part of the generation born in refugee camps in Nepal. They were educated in schools run by the United Nations, an education that gives these children an advantage over their parents, many of whom are not even literate in their native Nepalese.

In 1992, the Gautams moved into a one-room, dirt-floored hut in a camp about 25 miles from the Nepalese city of Damak. They often had to wait in line for hours to fill two cans with water. They shared a latrine with another family and bathed in a river.

But now they are in their new apartment in the Pittsburgh suburb of Castle Shannon. They have suddenly had to adapt to running water, indoor toilets, carpeting, closets, a refrigerator, electric sweepers and clock radios — because, as their caseworker explains, promptness is important in America.

“I’ve never seen a house like this,” Gautam said when caseworker Molly Ferra took them through the three-bedroom unit, showing them the small kitchen already furnished with bags of rice, tea, hot pepper sauce and a box of pots and pans.

She explained the use of the refrigerator and freezer to Gautam, the only member of the family who speaks English. “Very cold,” Gautam noted of the freezer.

Although life in the United States is far easier, some of the refugees do not want to leave the camps.

“Most of us want to return to Bhutan because we love our country and our roots,” D.P. Kafle, a resident of one of the camps, said in an interview in Nepal. “We are patriotic Bhutanese and there is no way we will go anywhere else.”

However, Larry Yungk, a senior resettlement officer with the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said 55,000 refugees from Bhutan have already signed up for relocation.

Norm-Anne Rothermel, Pennsylvania’s refugee coordinator in the Department of Public Welfare, said most cities are eager to take in the ethnic Nepalese.

“Refugees are excellent workers,” she said. “They do not want government assistance … all they want is a fresh start, so it’s a win-win situation when it comes to refugees.”

Mark Hetfield, senior vice president for programs and policy at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, said his group has settled 117 refugees from Bhutan this year and expects to double the number in 2009. HIAS is focusing its Bhutanese program on Charlotte, N.C.; Springfield, Mass.; Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio. Some will likely be resettled in Pittsburgh as well.

“There is no well-established Bhutanese populations in the U.S., so it is better to put them in places where housing is affordable and they could have the opportunity to buy a house in a few years,” he said.

Despite the refugees’ struggles with the language barrier, bureaucracy, job hunting and learning to live with modern amenities, Gautam had a question about something that to him seemed equally basic.

“A computer, will we get a computer?” he asked the caseworker. “I need the Internet to send e-mail to my teacher.” — his U.N.-run school had Internet access.

Ferra told him the family will receive a TV but they will have to purchase their own computer. At the library, she explained, they can access the Internet.

“Yes, the library,” Gautam says grinning. “My teacher told me I can get a card and use for free.”

The Associated Press:

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Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck became the world’s youngest reigning monarch when he was handed the Raven Crown by his father, the former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in an elaborate ceremony in Thimphu, the capital. The former King, who is 52, abdicated two years ago as part of a plan to reform the hermit-like Buddhist nation of 635,000 people, which had no roads until the 1960s and allowed television only in 1999.

The “Land of the Thunder Dragon” held its first democratic elections in March in an effort to avoid the kind of political trauma that led to the abolition of the world’s last Hindu monarchy in nearby Nepal this year. Court astrologers told the Wangchuk dynasty, which has ruled Bhutan for a century, that it had to wait until yesterday for an auspicious date for the coronation of the fifth Druk Gyalpo, or Dragon King.

Officials say that the astrologers deemed 2007 a “black year”, but others suggest that the royal family simply wanted to wait until Bhutan’s first two-lane highway, from the airport to the capital, was completed.

Hundreds of foreign guests, including Sonia Gandhi, the head of India’s Congress Party, attended the day-long ceremony in the golden throne room of Tashichho Dzong, a white-walled, 17th-century fortress. Also present were the former King’s four wives, who are sisters.

Jigme Khesar is the oldest son of the former King and his third wife, and was educated at private school in the United States and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied political science and diplomacy.

The ceremony began at dawn, when three giant tapestries were unveiled, each depicting Buddha and the gurus who took his religion to Bhutan. At 8.31am — exactly — Jigme Khesar received a satin and silk crown, topped with an embroidered raven’s head, from his father before taking his seat on a golden throne.

Thousands of Bhutanese have flocked to Thimphu, among them nomadic yak herders. “We have walked for more than a week to come to the celebrations,” said Dema, 32, a woman herder. “The King is like our father.”

Most Bhutanese credit the Wangchuck kings with ensuring the survival of their nation and its culture. The former King is also credited with inventing the concept of Gross National Happiness, which seeks to balance material progress with spiritual wellbeing. “We have enjoyed progress, sustained peace, security and growth,” Jigme Thinley, Bhutan’s new Prime Minister, said. “These are all attributed to the great kings, benevolent kings, selfless kings, that Bhutan has had.”

Bhutan, the world’s youngest democracy, hands Raven Crown to 28-year-old King – Times Online

The first king, Ugyen Wangchuck, was a masterful warrior-diplomat who was able to crush constant clan warfare and woo the British overlords in neighbouring India. London approved his proclamation of a kingdom in 1907.

When the British withdrew 40 years later, India replaced it as Bhutan’s protector. That role continues today: India is Bhutan’s biggest investor and customer.

The new king is an unexpected addition to the colourful array of personalities destined to play a role in this sensitive India-China border region.

For 34 years, his father, King Jigme Singhye Wangchuck, presided over a potentially tumultuous but ultimately calm period of rapid change. He has four strikingly beautiful wives, all sisters. King Jigme Khesar’s mother is his father’s third wife.

Educated in the United States and Britain, the handsome fifth king, the world’s youngest ruling monarch, is still single. He was catapulted onto the throne in December 2006. With little advance warning, his father, then a vigorous 51-year-old, announced that he would abdicate during the Wangchuck dynasty’s centenary celebrations.

It was time, he told his people, for the Crown Prince to take over Bhutan’s Raven Crown, which is named after the crown’s stylized raven’s head.

Before leaving, he engineered Bhutan’s transition from absolute monarchy to a limited parliamentary democracy. He now appoints five members of the National Council, the upper house, and the people elect the 47-member National Assembly or lower house. In the March election, the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party won all but two seats.

The new government is committed to the fourth king’s notable contribution to theories of national development, the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Reacting to criticism in the early 1970s that Bhutan was developing too slowly, he had declared that his kingdom would not rush into the 20th century. Instead, individual and environmental rights would take precedence over headlong entry into modernisation and consumerism.

To a visitor, GNH is most visible in the slow, even tempo of life, the pristine countryside and clear mountain air. Plastic bags and tobacco products are banned. Outdoor advertising for soft drinks, MTV and televised wrestling matches are also not allowed. Said Bhutanese guide Chodrup: “They do little to promote happiness.”

The Raven Crown | My Sinchew