Fiona’s Reviews > Radio Shangri-la: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth > Status Update

What the prime minister didn't mention was that the latest powerful force to ruffle Bhutanese prayer flags had come at his invitation, in the guise of the international consulting firm McKinsey & Company. This merry bank of bright-eyed young MBAs, dispatched from McKinsey's offices in next-door India, had been hired for $9.1 million. Their mission was to evaluate the nation's inner workings and mine them for greater

The dawn of the year of the Male Earth Mouse also meant the dawn of democracy in Bhutan—and with that, the formal diminishment of the all-powerful monarchy that had reigned for a century. Bhutan’s king would continue to lead, but no longer would he possess absolute power. A year into his tenure, Bhutan was still adjusting to this new, young monarch, and the absence of his beloved father on the throne.

The $200-a-day minimum “tourist tax” on each person is the kingdom’s way of deterring an onslaught of budget tourists and backpackers on spiritual quests, like the people who swarm to neighbouring Nepal and India. Bhutan doesn’t mind spiritual seekers; it just wants to attract a higher grade, and discourage them from staying too long.

We, the youth must keep ourselves informed.
We should arm ourselves with the knowledge to make our own futures brighter
Youth is temporary and fleeting but the foundations we build today will decide how bright the prospects will be for the rest of our lives
Kuzoo aspires to be the voice of the youth in Bhutan
Kuzoo aspires to inform the youth of Bhutan,
Kuzoo is the youth of Bhutan.
Kuzoo is ours; the future is ours

A city is at its best, its purest, at dawn. Empty, raw. You can see the veins of it. Before the rush of the day begins, it seems more Hollywood set than reality. In the slow pace of morning, Manhattan is almost quaint. Bleary-eyed dog owners, some wearing pajamas, sleepwalk as their charges take care of business. The stillness punctuated by the whine and white of a steady, slow parade of garbage trucks

Back in its early days, CNN didn’t wield enormous influence on the world stage as it does today; then it was disparagingly referred to as Chicken Noodle News.

Culturally, Bhutan-style Buddhism is ubiquitous, embedded in daily life. There is absolutely no separation of church and state in Bhutan; the lower half of the country’s flag is orange to represent the religion. The Government funds many of the monasteries, and each district’s administrative seat, the dzong, also houses monks.
Virtually every home features an altar, housed in a room of its own if space

Most of the jobs in journalism today are like information-factory work—Lucy-on-the-assembly-line style—or eating a steady diet of dim sum. You’d sample many items every day, fast, then gorge on the morsel assigned to you, trying to digest it as quickly as possible. A few hours later, you were expected to spew it out to the world in the form of a “story.”

the capital city was a world away from the rest of the country. Villagers might visit Thimphu once in their lives—and only then for formal business or to be tended to at the hospital. Travel in Bhutan had long been utilitarian, not for pleasure. Leaving home to scratch through forest paths in order to venture to the next town meant time lost working the land, which yielded the food and other necessities

Ringed by mountains, Bhutan’s only airport has been called the scariest in the world. Only eight pilots are certified to navigate it. The runway is narrow and visibility issues are often a problem, apt metaphors for the official and cultural barriers that make it difficult for a person to enter Bhutan’s borders. Once you’re on the ground, peaceful simplicity reigns. With just two planes in the Druk Air fleet