Know facts about Bhutan, the world's "happiest" country

New Delhi: Bhutan, a landlocked country in the Himalayas, is known as the "Land of the Thunder Dragon".In 2008, Bhutan made the transition from absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy and held its first general election. Bhutan is landlocked between India, Tibet, China, and Nepal. It is one of the poorest and least developed nations in the world.It has a population of 741,822 and the annual average income 110 USD a month. Despite all this, Bhutan has been ranked the happiest nation in Asia and eighth happiest in the world in 2006 by a business magazine. Here, plastic bags are banned, tobacco is illegal and the small Himalayan country measures wellbeing of people in terms of happiness called Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product.It is a development philosophy, first promoted by the King of Bhutan in the 1970s. And is best explained by four pillars. The first is Good Governance: Measured by the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.The second is Sustainable Socio- economic development: Measured by gender equality at work places.The third pillar is cultural preservation: In many cases, developing nations lose their cultures, origins, and way of life, languages, as well as natural resources to globalization. The society and culture, as well as the economy, become linked to the rest of the world and the ideas of the world flow into that country, often destroying culture. Geographical isolation in Bhutan has helped in keeping itself free from outside cultural influences. Locals must wear national dress during working hours and there is also a code of conduct that has been imposed since the 1990s. Their desire to preserve cultural values, as well as the desire to protect the environment has remained high. Bhutan's economy and culture are growing and changing. Bhutan's unique strategy has presented a solution to globalization.They are able to adapt to globalization, to strengthen their economy, while still preserving their thousand year old traditions and culture. Numerous monasteries have helped in preserving the culture.Fourth pillar in the internal search for happiness is environmental conservation. 70 percent of Bhutan is covered with forests, pollution levels, noise traffic are relatively very low.Bhutan has one of the stable ecosystems in the world and has virtually no environmental damage due to its long isolation. The restrictions on tourism and their protection of natural resources have let Bhutan preserve the beautiful landscape and physical country as well as their cultural identity. Called as the ‘Switzerland of Asia', the country has become an example of striking a balance between preserving one's culture and also promoting globalization. Internet, television, cell phones are as well as other modern technologies have become a part of Bhutan