In contrary to what Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley has been trumpeting in the name of Gross National Happiness (GNH) and Bhutanese model of democracy, a district court convicted one 15-year-old minor  of malicious mischief and criminal attempt, slapping him two years and three months jail, Wednesday. Another child has been sentenced a jail term of six months.

According to a verdict of Wangduephorang District Court, the child and his 16-year-old friend, who were charged of threatening a schoolteacher, were found guilty of ‘malicious mischief and criminal attempt’.

The state-run Kuensel has declined to name both the minors in its report, but confirmed their imprisonment, for the first time in the country.

Both the child offenders have reportedly confessed to the Kangaroo court of writing three warning chits to their Dzongkha teacher and setting of a cracker outside his apartment in an attempt to correct him from rendering corporal punishment.

Interestingly, nobody in the school said they knew of the explosion at the school campus, as claimed by the teacher. But, police allegedly found some pieces of paper and white powder in the so-called ‘explosion site’.

The verdict, which is said to be based on the Panel Code of Bhutan, said the prison term has been reduced to six months from one year each considering the offenders as minors.

A clause relating to sentencing of juvenile states, “If the defendant is a child of above 10 years, the court may sentence the juvenile of minimum half of the sentence prescribed for the offence.”

The 15-year-old child also received an additional 21 months prison term in connection with a burglary.

The Kangaroo court could have considered availability of other facilities and correctional institutions in lieu of imprisonment, but the verdict failed to incorporate that.

“If a juvenile is found guilty of an offense for which imprisonment is prescribed, the court may in lieu of imprisonment consider the availability of other appropriate facilities and correctional institutions,” states another clauses of the Panel Code.

Bhutan ‘unconstitutionally’ ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on 23 May 1990, expressing commitment to providing every possible support to children in the country.

Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley is scheduled to arrived in India earlier today on a four-day visit to Odisha during which he would attend a function of Maha Bodhi Society of India.

The Press Trust of India (PTI) reported that the Prime Minister along with a minister and senior Bhutanese officials would attend the general body meeting of Maha Bodhi Society of India and the opening ceremony of Guru Padmasambha Temple at Mahabodhi Society, Odisha Centre.

Thinley is scheduled to meet Odisha Governor M C Bhandare and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday, official sources said, Wednesday.

He will also meet Bhutanese students in Odisha and visit some educational institutes in the state, added the report.

During his four-day visit, the Prime Minister would visit the Sun Temple at Konark and Peace Pagoda at Dhauli on outskirts of the state capital.

It further said that the PM is also scheduled to attend the Maha Bodhi Society of India’s opening ceremony of Guru Padmasambhaba at Maha Bodhi Society centre and address a press conference on Saturday.

The Bhutanees delegation, including Labour and Human Resources Minister Dorji Wangdi, is scheduled to leave for Kolkata on Sunday evening.

The 60,000th Bhutanese refugee departed to the U.S. from Nepal yesterday, September 4, 2012.

She is a 28-year-old woman with a husband and young daughter.  The family will start a new life in Columbus, Ohio, the US embassy in Kathmandu said.

The U.S., in close coordination with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM), began resettling Bhutanese refugees residing in eastern Nepal in 2007.

Other countries participating in this resettlement program – Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom – have collectively resettled another 11,000 individuals. The U.S. is committed to considering for resettlement as many Bhutanese refugees as express interest, added the embassy’s statement.

Prime Minister Jigmi Y Thinley delivered his keynote address on the second day of the 16th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran, the capital city of Iran.

Presenting his keynote on September 1, PM Thinley said that lasting peace would prevail only when causes of conflicts become nonexistent in the world.

He said, “While peace may be understood as the absence of conflict, lasting peace is possible only when the very causes of conflict are nonexistent.”

Unfortunately, ours is a world where the causes for conflict abound with growing diversity and intensity not because they are inevitable but because we speak more of peace and care less for it, added he.

According to Thinley, there was now a serious search for a more comprehensive set of indicators that should guide development toward human wellbeing and happiness.

“My own country has been sharing its experience of having pursued Gross National Happiness (GNH), over four decades, by balancing material growth with mental and spiritual enrichment within a stable environment,” added he.