Bhutanese PM to speak in India on gross national happiness

December 13th, 2011 - 10:02 pm ICT by IANS  

Manmohan Singh New Delhi, Dec 13 (IANS) After successfully implementing gross national happiness — an alternative development indicator — in his country, Bhutanese Prime Minister Lyonchhen Jigme Y. Thinley will be speaking on the concept in India.

Thinley will deliver the fourth Hiren Mukerjee memorial annual parliamentary lecture on Dec 20 on the theme “Gross National Happiness: A Holistic Paradigm for Sustainable Wellbeing”, according to a parliament spokesperson.

In the Buddhist nation, happiness, not material success, is a way to measure well-being. GNH measures quality of life or social progress in holistic and psychological terms than only the economic indicator of gross domestic product (GDP).

Vice President Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar will attend the Bhutanese prime minister’s lecture, besides governors, chief ministers, presiding officers of state assemblies, MPs and a large number of invited dignitaries.

The Indian parliament instituted the lecture in 2008 to creatie awareness among all stakeholders on various issues of critical significance to the polity.

The inaugural lecture was delivered by economist Amartya Sen Aug 11, 2008.

Muhammad Yunus, founder and managing director of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, delivered the second lecture in 2009.

Jagdish Bhagwati, professor of economics and law at Columbia University and a senior fellow in international economics at the US Council on Foreign Relations, delivered the third lecture last year.

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