NORBU WANGDI

Kuensel published an article titled “only ada rachu for women” on 27 th April, which explicitly stated: “Women across the country will now have to wear only ada rachu on all occasions, according to a circular from the home ministry.” Since then, many (both men and women) have expressed their utter dislike and criticism for this new regulation. Here, I would like to take the opportunity to express my personal opinion on this subject, but first let’s break down all the points stated in the article – i.e. to say points made by dzongkhag cultural officers supporting this new regulation. Women are mandated to drape only ada rachus and not patterned rachus for uniformity and to preserve the tradition. As the eight lucky sign patterns was entitled only for Royal Family members, women should wear only ada rachu. In the past, common women wore ada rachus while only Royal Family members wore different patterned rachus that were more elegant. Many women prefer different pattern...

At 9 am this morning, I opened my notebook and logged into my facebook account. As usual, I scrolled my facebook wall to check if there are any important news and updates. After reading few headlines, I stumbled on an article that caught my attention. It was about how we are increasingly getting too attached to our mobile devices. It was titled ‘We Are Hopelessly Hooked.’ I spent few minutes reading this article and found it very interesting, and decided to share it with my friend, who shares same interest. Before I even shared this article, I found myself reading another interesting article. Minutes later another article. And another. And again another article. I kept clicking links after links and reading every single one of them until I realized that I have not shared my first article to my friend. This has happened to me several times and I thought it was just normal to be distracted for few minutes or even hours. At least, I thought, I was reading something useful and educational...

With ever rising number of graduates every year, the country is struggling to create more jobs. Today there are more than 9,000+ unemployed people in the kingdom  (2013), and the number is still expected to rise by manifold. With such staggering figure, it has already overwhelmed the Government, and both private and corporate sectors. In the past, the school enrollment rate was lowest in South Asia, but today it has the highest in the region. This has led to more students enrolling to schools and then graduating from colleges. The reasons may be attributed to the free education policy in the country, which has made education accessible to children from all backgrounds, and free health care services, which has contributed to their well-being.  Large pool of job seekers from all parts of the Dzongkhags are moving from rural to urban areas, mainly capital city Thimphu, and other major towns: Phuntsholing, Gelephu, Samdrup Jongkhar, Mongar, etc. in search of jobs. V...

Note : Before I write about this given topic, I would like to say that it is not my intention to make a contrasting opinion to any of the person or figures - political, commercial or economical, as a matter of fact. It is purely a personal interest for the topic and the information provided are based on my own personal research (articles, books, papers, etc.). Also, if you find incorrect information or any kind of mistakes please leave your suggestions under the comments section below. With increasing number of cities and countries adopting new Electric Vehicles (EVs) and hybrids, it is not uncommon for Bhutan to follow the same path. The conventional gasoline vehicles emit tonnes of pollution into the atmosphere, increasing global warming, and causing damage to the environment far more than we can imagine. So it makes perfect sense to adopt electric vehicles in our country as it is clean and efficient. EVs have minimum impact to both people and environment. However,...

“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” ― Mahatma Gandhi. In Bhutan, it is not uncommon to see ugly sight of garbage dumped on the roadside, solid waste thrown away at river banks, and landfills amassed with huge amount of rubbish. It is becoming more and more difficult for municipalities to manage solid waste in an efficient manner as urbanization and population has both increased.                                                                  Thirty years ago, it was not a big issue as Bhutan had no more than 600,000 people and more than half of the population lived in rural areas. Bhutanese imported few goods from the neighboring countries, mainly India. They produced almost everything in their own country, such as: milk, cheese, butter, rice, meat, wool, cotton, etc. But in recent years, Bhu...