Bhutan: Now and Then (TimeOut Explorer)

9 am: Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (in colour), 33, and his four predecessors (in black and white) --the kings of The Land of Thunder Dragon-- greet immigrants at the Paro airport in their full-length photographs. Accompanying them is the Scottish whisky-maker, Johnnie Walker, brandishing its merchandise. 3 pm: Kencho Dorjee, 25, slips out of the chanting room at the Thimphu Stupa and surreptitiously...

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Pursuit of Happiness (Forbes)

Money and happiness have been married and divorced umpteen times by economists. A recent study by University of Michigan professors Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers united moolah and mirth after Richard Easterlin, an economist and professor at University of South Carolina, separated them in 1974. While the Easterlin Paradox stated that rise in income does not necessarily increase happiness, the new research refutes it by proving that higher the income or the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), more...

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Seva Cafe serves generosity on a platter (Forbes)

The milieu at Shantivan, a garden in Mumbai’s tony Malabar Hill area, on February 17 was like a hangover from Valentine’s Day. Placards displaying messages like ‘Love is all we need’ were tied to tree branches and hearts were chalked with 8 bounty throughout the green sprawl. Except that it wasn’t an ode to Cupid. The occasion was the second monthly lunch hosted by Seva Café. Omnipresent at the venue was a bespectacled man in khadi kurta-pyjama. He, along with other volunteers, was welcoming the...

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The school on GB Road (Times Crest)

Kat-Katha can easily pass for a typical school for slum children: Six students from age 3 to 17 sit on a floor mat supervised by a teacher busy explaining place value on an abacus when we go in. Two bedsheet- covered computers are perched on a table in the adjacent room. The dilapidated walls are covered by sketches made by the students.  However, at the entrance of the school, on the same wall that displays a chart of 23 enrollments, hangs a curious vending machine which makes it apparent...

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The Credit Column (Outlook)

At the counter near the bank entrance, two women are helping illiterate women clients fill out their passbooks. Many other clients—again, women—stoop over women officials in their cubicles. There are no men here. This isn’t the all-women’s bank that Union finance minister P. Chidambaram proposed in the 2013-14 budget. It’s the Shri Mahila SEWA Sahkari Bank Ltd, Ahmedabad, one that has been around for 39 years. In the late 1960s, Ela Bhatt, as chief of the women’s wing of a textile labour union,...

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