It’s party time in Bhutan as 2nd democratic election is just a year away

Four years back, if you had asked anyone here about politics, “I don’t know,” was a predictable answer. But since March, 2008, after the first democratically elected government came to power, it’s a different world all together. Nuanced political statements punctuate private discussions at homes, bars or restaurants,  a phenomenon fuelled by the  new but sensitive English language press. 

Last week, the country’s biggest newspaper and 51% state-owned Kuensel took stock of ruling Druk Phuensum  Tshogpa’s performance.

Fighting climate change the Bhutan way

Sherab loved music and that’s how this 22-year-old village boy from Eastern Bhutan landed in capital Thimphu as an emcee with a small time dance bar. Though earning just 3,000 ngultrums (US$ 67) a month, he dreamt big; a car, a house, and a business.

Gankar Punsun glacier in Bhutan

In June, Global Warming came as the savior. He left the job to join 300 men,who would lower the water level of a melting glacial lake. From an altitude of 4,400 meters above sea level, the lake threatened to submerge human settlements, Buddhist monuments, agricultural land and huge hydropower projects.

From the US$ 7.8 million fund for the lake lowering project, Sherab would have earned his share of US$ 337 a month for removing huge boulders, digging small channels to divert water, and suffering the bone-eating Himalayan chill.

But on the way to the work site, Sherab died of altitude sickness, one of the first three direct victims of climate change in Bhutan, a country that has pledged to remain carbon negative.

My 2003 interview with Paulo Coelho. Published in English for the first time

This 2003 interview was done in the backdrop of Paulo Coelho becoming a global phenomenon. His novel, Eleven Minutes, based on the life of a sex worker was just published. Coelho, for the first time, took a strong political stand by writing an open letter to US President George Bush against the Iraq Invasion.  Some questions reflect certain aspects of my personal journey at that time; including my explorations on god-as-woman, liberation theology, questions on taking an apolitical stance to life, and the suicide of a couple of friends.