Opinions

The draft Bhutan Electricity Domestic Policy is a blow to Bhutan Electricity Authority’s autonomy. It goes to show that the BEA is pretty much a state apparatus, almost inseparable from it and under its constant influence.

From the foothills of Nepal’s snow-capped Himalayas to the beaches of the Timor Sea, the population of WHO’s South-East Asia Region is ageing. Eight percent of the Region, or around 142 million people, are currently over the age of 60, with estimates suggesting the proportion will rise to over 20 percent by 2050.

Taking the holistic view of a really old habit that just won’t quit

The great leap upward: from the depths of a lowbrow dive to the heights of a high priest’s table 

WHAT first took wing as a poor man’s home treat soared, in tandem with the art and science of alcohol, whose concoction bestrides both worlds, into a status symbol at high-end salons and suchlike.

Taking the holistic view of a really old habit that just won’t quit 

One good reason for alky’s age-old ties with mankind?  It can’t be all bad! LET me start, in the set essay style, with a relevant quote.  The only, if standout, difference is that it’s one of my own, coined right here and now for this article!  How’s that for cheek?  Those who’ve known my Recycled Cliché oeuvre will also know I can’t say no to a pun.  So humour this quirk of mine, won’t you, and let me baldly state that — ahem! —alcohol is as old as the stills!  Old - hills – stills - pretty lame, I know, but …well … you know.

Social media is a powerful tool. It can make or break us, depending on how we use it. In today’s world of social media, a nation doesn’t have to be hit by a missile to fall apart. A few impatient, impetuous, presumptuous, judgmental, brash social media messiahs and a gullible …

The issue of legality
The issue of legality has been raised both in the Parliament and outside. However, I don’t quite understand the real intentions of raising the issue of legality of BOIC.

The near-oxymoronic paradox in the title is echoed by the secretary of SMHA (State Mental Health Authority), Kerala, India in his comment on the curious ‘Kerala Model’ development.

Civil society is the oxygen of world’s most vibrant and stable democracies. In these countries, governments, civil society and development partners work together to achieve common goals.

Today we are seeing three mega hydropower projects underway with mega attention from public eye and critics thereof. And recently we have been noticing appetite from lawmakers to review the Electricity Act-2001 and the Hydropower Policy-2008. Thus the Hydropower sector clearly stands in the limelight at present.

Our economic fortune, energy security, national sovereignty and hydropower are inextricably linked. This critical linkage needs to be understood and appreciated in the broader context of our future in the new Asian Century.