Thursday, May 26, 2011

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!!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

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.  


      

Monday, May 9, 2011

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. 

Sunday, May 8, 2011

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.