Meet Your Peers: Passang Norbu

"Hi everyone. I am Passang Norbu, an avid basketball player, born in 1982 in a small town called Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan.

Although raised in Bhutan, I graduated in Commerce from Brihan Maharastra College of commerce in Pune, India. I joined the the National Newspaper Organization ‘Kuensel’ in 2006, and within a few months I was posted as the paper's correspondent for southern Bhutan, covering politics, economics, youth and sports. My home for two years was Phuentsholing, also known as Bhutan’s commercial hub, on the border with India.

Besides producing the occasional scoop about issues and impacts of development and writing profiles of the rural populace and vanishing traditional practices, I enjoyed traveling and meeting different people while in pursuit of agood story. Working with local communities in rural areas, a childhood interest, led to many interesting and pertinent stories that publicized their conditions.

In the year 2008, Bhutan became the youngest democracy in the world, an ideal era and place for a journalist. Having covered the first-ever election in Bhutan, I contributed significantly to the democratization process of Bhutan.

I am really looking forward to an interesting phase in life when I will be joining the University of Montana to pursue my Masters in Journalism. I believe that the experience and knowledge I will gain at Montana will prepare me for this formidable responsibility. How well a democracy succeeds depends, you’d agree, on how well the media succeeds in Bhutan."