Kathmandu, March 25, 2009: For the first time, Bhutan has expressed its willingness to host the 16th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit after the Maldives declined to host citing global recession.
Media reports from India and Nepal say government of Bhutan has sent a proposal to this effort to the SAARC secretariat in Kathmandu about two week ago expressing interest to host the summit.
Since the birth of the regional organization, Bhutan has never hosted any summits so far, along with Afghanistan – the new entrant to the SAARC.
However, Bhutan may face constraints since the summits are hosted in accordance with alphabetical orders of the country’s name and the SAARC secretariat is required to get approval from Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan to allow Bhutan to host the summit.
I hope this will be the happiest news for all those living in this country. For months I have been following the two sites this one and bhutannewsservice.com. Not what the sites write, but I followed what their readers chose to find out how many are Bhutanese by heart.
Months of follow up concluded this: those claiming to be Bhutanese refugees being resettled in western countries have no interests in Bhutanese issues at all. They fight, blame, cheat, bark, argue and fragment among them. The only thing they know about Bhutan is ‘Bhutan discriminated us’.
For you to be Bhutanese, you need to learn what’s happening in Bhutan, not just blame for the past days. Bhutan has changed substantially after you left and your claim are no more substantive here.
I found no comments, no suggestions and no arguments in these sites where news about activities inside Bhutan are posted. Do you all, in fact, know what’s happening here? Obviously not and you are no more interested to Bhutan. Wish you to remain refugee, to burrow word from you as you describe you to be so but not us, for life and better be the citizens of other countries like Parshuram in Australia and Ram Karki in Netherlands.
But again, you don’t like them to be so because you crack so much joke, you criticize them so much and now, without are demands, you are uncovering what you and your leaders did back in 1990. You foolish had said ‘Bhutan’s hidden filth will uncover’ but things are growing not in that direction.
Best of luck for you immigrants!
Tashi delek
Thimphu person
I hope your happiness is not short lived. We do criticize, bark, blame, blame etc (as you put it) because we believe that through critical appraisal be it negative or positive, only we come to terms and do not divert from our main objectives. We also believe that questioning leads to introspection, introspection leads to analysis and analysis leads to rational decisions. This is what we have learned for the past 17 years, means we are politically conscious way ahead of you because you still live a life of suppression under the hegemony of your ruler suppressing your frustrations deep down your heart. Yes you can not argue, debate even in a simple topic and represent yourself either in the domestic affairs or in the international sphere except go on praising and never have the guts to question, verify and correct it. If you choose to question it (say concerning even the utmost national interest) you are leveled as anti national because you did that to us long time ago and continue to do so and in fact that is an example for you from your ruler if you do the same. You blame us for the stories/news being published from exile such as in the Nepal News, BBC, Internet, Youtube etc. only through derogatory comments but in reality you are intellectually wounded/handicapped even to produce a simple argument from your side to counter a particular news and inform the readers in general to have a balanced view. The fact is simple, you accept your deeds and what the news claims.
There are some of the issues I guess I am aware of.
EMPLOYMENT PARADOX: Rising unemployment especially amongst youth on the one hand and acute labour shortage and laborers from India have to feel the gap. Illogical solution to unemployment problem creating vacancies by compulsory retirement of southern Bhutanese to provide jobs to your own people instead of tuning macro economic policies. Now the unemployment issue is among yourselves. The result is nepotism, corruption, rising tension among the youths, drugs, sex, alcohol, violence, rape. I heard Thimphu has really become unsafe.
CONSUMERISM: Massive import of luxury goods, vehicles, gadgets, western music CDS thereby soaring import bills and your deteriorating current account position (trade deficit) depleting your domestic savings and flight of massive amount of capital, a serious blow to entrepreneurs. Conspicuous consumption of these items creating inequality in consumption, asset possession, widening gap between the rich and the poor.
GLOBALIZATION AND CULTURE: I heard that most of the people especially youth do not prefer to put their own traditional dress in Thimphu. Youth emulate western culture, lifestyle and consumption pattern have changed. They call this modernity or westernization. The desire for conspicuous consumption, hangouts, booze, late night party have increased violence, rape etc etc. If this is the case I am sure this is not westernization as what they think this is WESTTOXICATION and a sign of mistaken modernity.
What else! You know better than me. Let me hear from you. Oh recently the case of the beggars being loaded on to a vehicle and thrown somewhere in the midst of the jungle like the one you did to stray dogs sometime ago. Dogs and human beings are indifferent to you. I know some people have raised voice in the online forums and they call it human rights violation. You call this violation because the beggars were from your community and when we were loaded on trucks and send to Nepal this was not a case of violation and you branded us as anti national????? The sad thing is you can not even discuss raise the issue of the beggars in public. What else you want me to write, about few luxury hotels, that violate employment norms, or the hazel nut plantations?????
Good writings Dil. I think from my prespective, you have all the knowledge of current affairs and the advesre effects of so called political uprising / ethnic cleansing in tiny himalayan country. Why don’t you come up with the post of pre and pro 1990 , so that we younger generation would know , what excatly happened during those times. Kudos to you.
Your informations would enlighten some many inquisitive minds like me.
Expecting more writings from you.
Good luck.
Hi
Looking for identity
Please give sometime.
Thanks
My fellow on Orkut shared this link and I’m not dissapointed that I came here.
So pleased to read such a entertaining post that does not resort to lame antics to get the topic fulfilled. Thanks for a great read.