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Communicating Public Health Information in one of Bhutan’s Larger Small Languages: Mangdepikha

Tenzin Dorji (College of Language and Culture Studies, Royal University of Bhutan) Mangdepikha (also known as Nyenkha) is one of the 19 or more languages spoken in Bhutan. It is currently spoken by around 10,000 people living in central Bhutan. This post focuses on the communication of COVID-19 public health information in the Mangdepikha-speaking village […]

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A Lifesaving Language in Crisis

Kunbzang Tsering དཀུན་བཟང་ཚེ་རིང (PhD Candidate, La Trobe University) During August 2020, several landslides occurred on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, as a result of heavy rain. This disaster destroyed many homes and resulted in approximately 2,000 villagers being relocated to the county town. In this post, I will look at how local Tibetans used the Baima […]

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Towards Learner-Centred Approaches to Agricultural Training in the Indian Himalayas

Meeting learners’ needs requires a focus not only on improving individual earning capacity but also on collective empowerment and overcoming social injustice. In recent years, India has introduced a suite of new agricultural skill development programs for more than 170 job roles in the agricultural sector. Trainers and policy makers hope that these trainings will […]

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Urbanising Tibet: Aspirations, Illusions, and Nightmares

  

On 28 March 2019, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrated ‘Serfs Emancipation Day’ 西藏 百万农奴解放纪念日 or, alternatively, the sixtieth anniversary of ‘democratic reform in Tibet’ 西藏 民主改革. Exiled Tibetans commemorate 10 March 1959, the date of the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile in India, as ‘Uprising Day’, when thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa and skirmished with the […]

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Are debates over linguistic rights erasing diversity?

As elsewhere in High Asia, minority languages in Tibet are the first victims of international tensions. During the recent UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) periodic review of China, a total of twelve countries raised the issue of Tibet. In their response, the Chinese delegation devoted two minutes to discussing Tibet (begins 2:33:39), and half that time was spent talking […]

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Has the World Lost Sight of Tibet?

  

Since the incarceration of roughly a million Uighurs in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang over the last year, the situation in Tibet has gotten relatively less coverage in Western media. What is the current situation for human rights, political openness or repressiveness, and economic development in Tibet? And how has the attention paid to […]

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