Human Rights and Women's Rights in Bhutan

People in different countries belong to different cultures. Despite these differences, they have one thing in common. All human beings are born free and equal and enjoy certain unconditional rights. The idea of Human Rights has become one of the most cherished in the history of human kind.

Human Rights are those rights which every person enjoy simply by the fact that he/she is a human being. Human Rights are universal regardless of a person‘s race, religion, sex and ethnicity. Bhutan is also a signatory to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Subsequent to UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and UN Treaty on Women's Rights, we also talk about women's rights in Bhutan, particularly about empowering them and eliminating any form of discrimination against them. While it is generally said that there is no gender inequality in Bhutan, low women participation in the democratic process has created seroius concerns. The idea of reservation of seats for women has been one of the ideas floated as means for consideration to address this issue.

Asked what the Parliament, Government, institutions and individuals could do to encourage women participation in politics, one of the common answers is advocacy and education. Most of the people think that education and advocacy for women‘s right and opportunities in society would encourage them to participate in political process.

However, I feel that education and advocacy could be taken into consideration only if women in question are either illiterate or semi-literate. Advocacy and education would stimulate women to take proactive role in society. On the contrary, we have a lot of highly qualified and educated women in Bhutan. An advocacy strategy for such women would not make sense.

If learned and experienced women do not take the initiative to participate in political process, it will take decades before we see women in leadership. Unless it is for their genuine interest or a wise policy, strategies such as reservation of seats, advocacy, education and other incentives have negligible value to encourage them participate in the democratic process. Hence, we need to think of more than just advocacy and education to encourage women‘s participation in political process.

To Their Majesties-On their Heavenly Wedding

This is the poem of love from the National Council to Their Majesties on Their Wedding.


 

Men are for Laws and not laws for men....

It is obvious to know that some of the top level beauricrats in our society assume men for laws and not laws for men. It is more obvious to know that they are strong about laws that have to be followed by men strictly not considering what human predicaments men are associated with. Hence old-brain ruled intellectuals of modern today would struggle for another half a century before they are totally freed from the chronic legacy.

Recently, I visited the esteem office of the boss of the department where my wife serves. I would rather have not asked him that for which I still feel embarrassed as help seeker. I asked him if there was any possibilty of my wife being transferred here so that frequent family problems could be solved and unforeseen evils within a married couple could be taken care of.

"The Human Resource Policy of our Ministry has been passed recently and in that anyone initially placed in the urban area has to serve for a minimum of five year", he said. Asked if marital cases could be considered, he said the clauses on marital cases come only after the clause on completion of the aforementioned term. It became more obvious for me. 

Then I asked if the HR Policy could supersede the BCSR 2010 which is believed to be the umbrella rules for the civil servant. He did not want to comment on this. Thus, I realised that men are born for laws not laws made for men.    
  

If someone says 'GEAR FASAI", what one has to understand-Tips during car breakage

If your car breaks down on the way and you cannot change the gear anymore, you ask someone or anyone who drives. Some will not know what actually the problem is. Somone who encountered similar mechanical failure in his past driving time, will say"GEAR FASAI" which is the word used by Indian mechanics. It is nothing but a problem with your gear getting locked in one gear and you cannot shift it to any other desired gear. It happens when the gear lever gets banged and the gear shaft is unstraightened.

It happened recently with my car while I was driving to Pemagatshel. I just crossed Dewathang. Samdrupjongkhar-Dewathang road is as horrible as it could be. No road in the world, not even in hell would there be such road to ply. If such road existed in hell, I think there should be another name for hell which should imply the most horrible meaning than the term hell imply today. The widening work in 2006 has made it so and it would take some years to befit to be called a road plyable and peace road.

Crossing Dewathang would bring you to a road not worser than Samdrupjongkhar-Dewathang road. The widening team is at this stage and this place making the road implyable. There are boulders, mud and many more to stagnant any car. For my car, it was worse. The wheels of my car is not taller than the deep nitch in the mud made by the wheels of the trucks traveling before me. So I was driving careful and suddenly, my gear made a huge croaking sound. By the time, I tried to minize the gear, it had already got locked and it was in the 3rd gear. I tried to pull hard but to vain.

Some minutes later, some racing taxis came but their way blocked by my car. Their race ended when they had to pull my car out of their way. I asked was the problem with my car. One of them said it was gear fasai- the word that I heard for the first time and will never forget. He then advised me to return as I would never make uphills. They assured their helping hand wherever my car wont climb. I drove back but in the same gear (3) and luckily my car could manage to climb uphill at 4 Kilo checkpoint area. I directly drove back and put my car in Barma Workshop. The next day, the mechanics operated my car like doctors and with grunts and whistle of sadness. I just watched what they do. After 6 hours of constant operation, he said it is ready. But ready does not mean for the owner. The head mechanic so called GURUJI drive it until Daranga and to 4 Kilo for test. After that he approves it and finally it was ready. The crooked gear shaft was replaced but the old one was not as crooked as I thought but the negligible bent can divert your days and your luck. That was gear fasai.    

Hon'ble Minister for Finance answers NC querry

In the Question Time of the National Council, the Hon’ble Member from Lhuntse asked question on tax exemption on educational expenses. He said that while tax for Nu.50000 a child was exempted, due to increase in the prices of commodities, the expenses exceeded beyond 100,000. He also said that tax exemption applied only if the expenditure was incurred on the educational expenses of one’s own children and not dependents. Therefore, he asked if the Government could increase the limit to Nu. 1,00,000 a child annually and expenses incurred for the education of their relatives.

To this, the Hon’ble Minister for Finance said that while the Ministry undertook a research on the issue, the finding was not satisfactory. The finding indicated that the increase in limit from Nu. 50000 a child a year would not benefit the general public while those at higher income level could be promoted. He also said that tax for Nu. 5000 a child was exempted without having to provide evidences of expenditure. Should the limit be increased from Nu.50000, the Hon’ble Minister said that the same should be done with Nu. 5000 and the economy would be at stake. It could lead to corrupt practices as well. He said that tax exemption for educational expenses of one’s relative cannot be arranged because if provided, everybody from the villages would prefer studying in schools in the towns.

The Hon’ble Minister said the matter would be taken into account in future.

What Mr. Tashi Jyatsho has to say about corruption

Tashi Jyatsho : I think we really have some serious priority issues in our country.

.....instead of alcohol, they banned tobacco.
.....instead of amending the law for corruption and embezzlement penalties, they are amending minor rape penalties.
.....instead ...of establishing a full fledged nursing college first, they are goingto establish a medical school.
.....instead of first of all improving the quality and standard of our own education system, they are talking about establishing an international education city.
......instead of employing our own people to make our own plans for our own development, they are paying a few idiots of a foreign consultancy firm HALF A BILLION ngultrums just to tell us exactly what we already knew.

The desire to fight corruption was there since a long time ago but SO FAR NOTHING HAS HAPPENED....oops!! but yes a few rats were jailed, terminated and fined but the big goons who embezzled hundred millions get royal pardons....and the others who have basically crippled the very foundation of our health ministry beyond recovery for the next half a century are still zooming in flashy land cruisers wearing 'bura marps" and owning numerous massive buildings in our major towns!! And the kids of bigshots are still availing most of the un-advertised scholarship slots, and most people with links and connections are still the people who are benefitting the most from the foreign trainings and seminars even if they are not related to their jobs at all!!

As long as we keep on submitting EMPTY desires with FLOWERY SPEECHES to fight corruptions and shamelessly BULLSHITTING about zero tolerance of corruption WITHOUT any solid ACTIONS, corruption will devastate our country. In fact that devastation has already started: the number of morally devastated people but otherwise could-have-been more productive citizens of our country is increasing at a very fast rate today!!

The reason for stewards in Bhutan to panic

Mr. Choesum, a caretaker of the state Guest House is scratching his head, not because it itches him. He is inevitably doing it because of an unbearable tension behind his mind that makes him feel restless always. Sometimes he has less care for the arrival of his state guest because he has not made the things in the guest house intact and he is not able to do this.

Why cant he when he is expected to do it? There are 1001 reason for being unable to fix the problem. When the guest house was designed, the designer's head was knocked with an idea to install a high beam effective electric bulb. He/she gives a long list of items to the contractor who bids to fix the lighting system.

"Hello! Is this Mr. Samuel of Asian Technology Store of Singapore?" calls the contractor. "Yes, I am and how can I help you", replies Mr. Samuel.  "I am Mr. Dorji from Bhutan Technology. Can you send me 150 sets of salt crystal electric bulbs as early as possible?". "Sure and you can expect it by early next week but please pay half tomorrow as usual" asks Mr. Samuel. The contractor receives the items by next week and he fixes it. All set and done and he hands over the building to the authority well furnished.

The next day, Mr. Choesum finds a couple of the bulbs fused. He asks the management to replace it as he expects state guest soon. But the management finds that there isn't single bulb like that in the market. The management asks the dealers to arrange to supply it but they quote the amount equivalent to triple the cost. This is because it is not available in the Indian market and it has to be imported from elsewhere so the high cost. Even if it is available, the budget to buy it is expensive to be affordable.

Where is the loophole?  Is it with the engineers, designers or contractors? When the idea knocked his/her head, did the designer consider the availability in the market? Why didn't the contractor inform the designer about the future recurrent impossibilities? Why didn't the management revisit the proposal before implementations.

This are all the questions that makes Mr. Choesum to scratch his head and chins everytime.  


      

The Upcoming Parliamentary Glossary for 7th Session of Parliament

The institution of democratic system in Bhutan has brought about many changes beside governance. With the transition, there are lots of new terminologies and phrases which are often mistaken for another word. There are also many Parliamentary terms which are used in other democracies, applied here in Bhutan too but does not have an equivalent term in Dzongkha.

Considering the importance, the Research and Language Development unit of the NCS is coming up with  a bi-lingual Glossary of Parliamentary terms. The booklet containing some 1000 words is scheduled to be printed and distributed to Hon'ble Members of NC during the 7th Session. It is expected to be a pocket sized booklet. Some of the words are coined as per the usage and practicality. For instance, some of the words are coined as follows:

          Deliberative Vote-འབྲེལ་གཏོགས་ཚོགས་རྒྱན། 

          Casting Vote-ཐག་བཅད་ཚོགས་རྒྱན།

          Ayes vote- དོན་བཏེགས་ཚོགསས་རྒྱན།

The next project will follow this achievement with more in-depth research. This is aimed at easing hon'ble members during live sessions and at other times. 

A phantom or a Friend-The Cyber Betrayal

.....Titi titik.. ...  Nothing astonishing, it was a new sms in my person.com account but this time it was a new chat request. "Hi, how are you and where are you chatting from?", read the message. It was from someone called 'sazaluvu'. 'Hello, I am khamsel chatting from Thimphu', I replied.  After  an hour of exchange of information, we became a close chat mates. We got into yahoo messenger to have a live chat then.

A few days later, I happened to proceed on tour. Our chat in person.com and yahoo messenger became technically obsolete. We started chatting through our cell phones. After completing my tour, I was at Gelephu, on my way back to Thimphu when I got a call from my chat mate asking me to visit her while returning home. While I could not accept to visit her, I could neither deny her request. Finally, I decided to visit her.

But where was that place she was asking me to come? Oooops! "M/gang"- a place which was some 30 minutes drive down slope from the National Highway. I would surely give her a surprise I thought. Did she really say she was working in a school at M/gang? Certainly she said that. So I got near the school and started dialing her. Despite repeated calls, there was no response from the other end. Frustrated and confused, I turned my way back.

I started giving a well justified thoughts then. What if I met with someone terrifying? Or else, if she was speaking from somewhere far away from that place but fooling me to divert my journey to that place. She must be a phantom. She isn't there anyway. The ultimatum was a cyber betrayal.

When the profound philosophy is misused...

Gross National Happiness- The sacred philosophy and the development principle of Bhutan has been initiated and brought to practicality during the 34 years reign of His Majesty the 4th Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck. His Majesty the King has always been reinforcing to keep the legacy immortal through setting examples, giving wonderful speeches and appreciating the initiatives related to GNH. The core value of Druk Phunsum Tshogpa, headed by His Excellency Prime Minister Jigme Y Thinley has been directly derived from the philosophy. Subsequently, Ministry of Education has set curriculums on GNH, rather a subject in schools in which students had to undertake homeworks, practicals and other activities on GNH.

While the Ministry feels that the GNH would be promoted through insisting students to learn through practical involvement in the GNH activities, to a section of people, it has featured like a handy tool misused. Students has started naming toilets as as GNH toilets, GNH water tap, GNH garden, GNH tree, GNH footpath, GNH kitchen and so on. The nomenclature has featured out of sheer compulsion.  Some of the students might have already planned to use GNH to some teachers because a student like Jamyang Chogyel from Nangkor HHS has already been awarded the GNH Boy certificate (Of course, his award routed through Committee and was fair). 

In this sense, the profound philosophy of Gross National Happiness, expected to be respected, is misused.

Hon’ble Chairperson graces the Annual Nomad’s Festival

March 08, 2011: The Hon’ble Chairperson graced the three-day 2nd annual Nomads’ Festival at Nasiphel under Choekhor Gewog in Bumthang. The festival which gave a platform for the nomads of the eight northern dzongkhags to showcase their culture, food and products, among others was organized by the Wangchuck Centennial Park, Ministry of Agriculture. In his address, the Hon’ble Chairperson said that the initiative taken by the Ministry of Agriculture to organize such festival was one of the prominent steps taken to enhance Gross National Happiness through preservation and promotion of culture. The festival would enable the nomads of the eight Dzongkhags to get together and exchange their culture, tradition and products to improve their lifestyle. The Hon’ble Chairperson also advised the indigenous group of people not to depend exclusively on the cordycept harvest but explore themselves to produce other products. He said the festival was the forum for innovating new ideas and learn to produce evergreen goods. He also said that while it was important for them to uphold the age-old tradition and culture, they must not ignore the laws passed by the Parliament. He said he would feel embarrassed to know somebody guilty of the repercussion of law ignored.