We are Worried and Afraid....

Though we study abroad, we keep in touch with what is happening in our dear country. We get informed with the various Medias and social Medias. Sometimes, my mom, back at village gets surprised when I tell her about NA candidates and which party they belongs to. Not only about politics, we keep in touch with all happenings.

And we are worried. I can see my friends confused and afraid.

Today, we talked in a group about the politics in Bhutan, and about the anonymous virus in social Medias.

My friends and I was frustrated about what is going on in Bhutan. We talked about Bhutanomics and Bhutan Times, two halls of defamation, which is believed to be used by freelance writers and bloggers of Bhutan. These two website is worrying us a lot, as they scribble anything that strikes their mind, and make the fool believe they are true. We are afraid people will be manipulated and make wrong decision. That is what we were talking about. We supposed, DPT be appreciated for their efforts to fulfill almost all of their promises despite being the first democratically elected parliament. Think of how difficult and arduous task it would have been to adapt with the transition from monarchy to democracy. 

We also talked about the edited photos of our former Lyonchen and lyonpos. Our country is a small country where all of us exist harmoniously. It is our natural responsibility in the words of our king, His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, to respect and appreciate those who do good works. They did, and developed our country within five years to a great extent. We have to see it all, and feel it. But we found none of the political parties and social media users appreciating those good works. I could see my young friends sentiments being hurt. Young friends are the segment of our youth, the future leaders. 

And one more worrying thing is the unrealistic promises being made by the political parties during their campaign. It underestimates the intelligence of the Bhutanese people. Promise us what you can do. Do not fool the people of Bhutan being the Bhutanese, that too the leaders. Do not promise us that there would be zero unemployment in Bhutan within five years. It is just impossible. Promise us that you all would work to reduce the unemployment rate. It would be more realistic. We could not take in PDP President promising one Bank in every Gewog, a power-tiller for every chiwog and two millions funds for every Gewog. We found it unrealistic. Might be we are too young to understand. What he says and what he promises is contrasting.

Another thing is, it looks like three parties are competing with DPT. We want participation, not competitions.  We noticed most of the candidates during "common forum" trying to directly or indirectly criticize and insult DPT candidates. Common forum is for making yourself familiar with the public by talking about the ideologies and objectives not point out the follies and defame others. Do not try to win the hearts of the people with the dirty practices. We are excited to see those talking parrots ruling our country, and see whether it is as easy as what they thought and what they said. It does not mean you all would not be able to fulfill your promises but it means accept the fact that it would not be paper perfect to work and prove it. 

These all are the points we discussed today during our free time and I felt genuine to write and share because you all have to know that we too talk about politics and we are worried as well as afraid that democracy may not go as clean as we dream of it.

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Invited to write for "Students' Digest"...

Today, I am extremely happy. I am literally jumping with joy. I am invited by Mr. K.B Lama to write for the Students' Digest. He is a well known journalist of Bhutan, who worked first with BBS and he was the first English Editor of the private newspaper, Bhutan Observer and also worked with Bhutan Today. We knew each other through our works. I knew him long time before he knew me. I am fan of his writing skills and used to read every article that appeared with his name. I used to cut clean his works and paste cleanly with glue in my scrap book. It is still intact in my collections at home. And I was tremendously happy and felt honored to receive his message in my email congratulating me on publishing my first book, and encouraged me to work even more, move further. It is something which writers (interested in writing) can understand. 

And again, today I am deeply honored to receive his personal invitation to write for Students' Digest. I am asked to write something that youth wants to read. And told me, youth knows better about youth. It is so true. I am writing about it in my blog to request for the suggestions on what I can write about. So that it can be of the youth, by the youth and for the youth. Would you all please kindly drop your suggestions? 

Thank you all.

Issue of 2012 (April-July)

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"The Joy of Beautiful Dreams" in Bajo Book Fair..

Photo by Mr. Passu

I jumped with joy when I knew my book reached Book fair in Bajothang. It means a lot for a young writer like me. It means an achievement. 
I am very much thankful to Mr. Passang Passu Tshering for caring to take photo of my book, and tweeting. 
And I am humbled and touched with his words. He wrote:
 "It is very interesting to know that Monu wrote the book as student, the time most kids lose direction. He not only wrote the stories then but also published it at that age. My salute to you Monu! " 
These are words beyond I deserve. But I am thankful to your kind words, sir.
As soon as I updated this photo and wrote in Facebook: 
Today I felt great that my first book, "The Joy of Beautiful Dreams" traveled long way and reached Book Fair in Bajothang HSS. Thank you Passang PaSsu Tsheringfor letting me know about it. It is joy to see my book with the books of other great Authors.
Many of my friends congratulated me which touched me a lot. Among them, my English Madam, Kinza Lham, of High School also commented saying:
Wow I'm so happy for you. I know you are going to reach beyond any boundary. Just a matter of time. Congrats my boy!
These words keep me moving. I felt I did something. And I am inspired to do even more in the future. And today one of my Facebook friend, Pema Choden, present at Book Fair told me in chat "Your book became famous but only few copies were available. Most of the people are searching for it." It brought immediate joy but I felt sorry that all of you could not get the copy. I just published 500 copies due to financial constraint as it is self-published book.
Thank you Kamala for your kind heart to congratulate me in very different way.Here is what she posted in my Facebook wall:

From Kamala Tamang

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Presidential Public Debate'13: My Say...

Bhutan is the most corrupted and living hell, as per some of the newspapers and some social medias of Bhutan. This is what DPT president Jigme Y. Thinley said. And, I found it true. On the mission of criticizing and defaming the government, media reached to the extent where people may mistake Bhutan for the most corrupted country. I don't mean all Bhutanese medias. But few medias are there, where they cook up and manipulate the stories with self-manufactured species and flavor. Media is not the judiciary branch where they can pass the verdict. They should report the truth, and nothing beyond.
And, I found the debate more of like DPT vs PDP+DNT+DCT. Our former Lyonchhen was defending all the questions thrown on him from three party presidents. Others addressed themselves as their friends and best friends, and JYT rightly hit the chord, though humorously saying, "Am I not your friend?" to Former Opposition Leader, Tshering Tobgay. Questions asked among three parties were simple and direct, perhaps, it is because they haven't done the work yet and less criticisms. But DPT was attacked with numerous hard questions from all directions.
Aum Lily Wangchuk, President of Druk Chirwang Tshogpa was trying to gain the sympathy from the people saying that she is the cancer survivor. And how it changed her dreams of her life. That is fine. But she need not mention it every time she got to speak. I appreciated her vision of solving the unemployment problem of youth. It is not the problem of our youth alone, but the problem of our society. We look forward to see the positive changes if your party get elected.
Aum Dorji Choden, President of Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa, spoke humble and cool. But I didn't believe her when she said that her party can understand all the problems faced by the people. It is quite unrealistic. They may understand much, but more remains to be understood. I am hopeful that the gap between haves and haves-not may reduce under your leadership. And her focus on was on equitable development elevating the rural areas.
Former Lyonchhen Jigmi Y. Thinley focused more on the developmental activities which took place during his tenure. His explanation on verdict passed for Sonam Tshering, and Two Lyonpos regarding Gyelposhing Land scam was not satisfactory. He pointed out to the judiciary who passed the verdict. Most of the people are unhappy with this justice only. And the developmental activities during last five years was remarkable. It is not possible to fulfill almost all the campaign promises, but our country developed to great extent within last five years.
Former Opposition Leader, Tshering Tobgay pointed out, farm roads cleared by DPT is just for the namesake, where most of the roads get blocked and do not serve the purpose. He wanted the roads to be in perfect condition within five years. He is right. But to work is not as easy as saying. We have to understand that summer rains causes flood and block most of the roads. It takes time to be stable, and in good conditions. I found him go quite emotional at concluding address. PDP carried out the responsibilities of Opposition party meticulously, which made us raise our eye brows in appreciation. Though smallest opposition of the world, but they never let Government do any work in full freedom unless all laws were followed.
I wish all of the four parties best of luck in upcoming election. People elect the best party. You may download and watch First Presidential Debate'13 by clicking here: BBS and Youtube. 

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