Nawang P Phuntsho

Photo:  http://bigginsblog.wordpress.com/ Back in our primary school we were taught Kuen dang thuenlam zha go ༴ཀུན་དང་མཐུན་ལམ་བཞག་དགོ། (One must maintain good relations with everyone) and we were also taught that without good kuen dang thuenlam ༴ ཀུན་དང་མཐུན་ལམ། one could hardly succeed. And we grew up with this notion that with kuen dang thuenlam ༴ཀུན་དང་མཐུན་ལམ། at our disposal we can do anything in life. Most of our life depends on kuen dang thuenlam ་ ༴ཀུན་དང་མཐུན་ལམ་། . If we are bred this way, then we can’t do much on our own. Can we? Because we are saying that in order to succeed in life, we need the help of others. Of course the proverb might be suggesting or pointing us to the need of good relations with others in the community. But at the same time we are also indirectly promoting nepotism. Don’t you think? And that’s one of the most rampant forms of corruption that people identify. The need for good relations and having them on the other hand pro...

Says it all Finally BBS featured a story on dying Bhutanese print (private) media the other day. The report said it was due to heavy decrease in revenues owing to decrease in government sponsored advertisements. And it was pointed out that some media firms are planning to layoff their people while others I am told have not paid their employees for sometime now. A media firm that I know has not yet paid their employees December 2012’s salary. It is disturbing. On one hand we keep saying that we need a vibrant media for our democracy to function but then a few years into our democracy, we are back to square one. With the death of private newspapers we will only have some state backed media that will run the shows. The next round of elections is around the corner and our media show no sign of improvement. I was told of mass exodus of senior and experienced reporters and editors from private papers. Authorities blame on the number of papers. Maybe the way we issued...

Once again! It is tax time. And soon civil servants working in the Department of Revenue and Customs will get busy like bees. We were told that taxation helps build our nation and hence tax is a good thing. It is been some years since I became part of this nation-building process in my own capacity. But I have been thinking about it for a long time. I am not sure if there are provisions in the Income Tax laws.   It is a well-known fact that most Bhutanese do not own houses in the towns. And for the same reasons our parental/ancestral houses remain vacant, devoid of mirth or the warmth that they once had. But again that is another story. We are talking about cities here. And there are some people who own houses in towns. Lucky people! As the law of demand and supply goes, house rents shoot above our heads. I will hardly be surprised if some day in future if it becomes beyond our capacity even to rent a bago (bamboo hut) in the town periphery. The number of b...

Standing still when things move Last evening I was watching some senior Dzongkha teachers, who were chosen for a study tour to India, speak on BBS. I was moved by the sort of gratitude that these teachers show to the authorities for the opportunity given to them. And almost all of them agreed that such study tours would expose them to diverse cultures and be one of great learning experiences! Of course, there is no doubt about it! These teachers have never been sent on any training abroad. Some of them have been teaching for more than 20 years. Towards the end, we were also given opinions from the coordinators in the ministry, who also agreed that such tours would be very useful to the Zhungkha language teachers. But if that was the case why haven’t we done it before? Was it irrelevant back then? I find lack of budget a terrible and unacceptable excuse! And last night I could not sleep. Rather my sleep was disturbed by the realization that there are countless teachers or ot...