¶ … Reporting plan on the profile story about Thakur P. Mishra.
Profile: Thakur P. Mishra
People to interview
This proposed assignment will profile Thakur P. Mishra, head of the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency. Mishra has worked to resettle many persecuted Bhutanese suffering political persecution in the United States, where they can find a harbor of safety. Mishra is a journalist in exile from his native Bhutan as well as works to help others who have been persecuted by the current ruling Bhutanese regime. He is also an editor and special correspondent for the monthly Bhutan Reporter (TBR) as well as the founder and editor-in-chief of the Bhutan News Service (BNS) ("Thakur P. Mishra," 2015). He maintains an active blog on the subject of Bhutan entitled A Former Refugee's Journal. As well as interviewing Mishra himself, current and former co-workers of Mishra will be interviewed, along with people who have been helped by the Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency. If time permits, experts on issues of Bhutan and freedom in the press will be interviewed from local universities.
Research materials
Research will take the form of primary and secondary sources. Primary sources will consist of interviews with Mishra himself; his co-workers...
If possible, former refugees will be interviewed, either in-person or via phone or email. Secondary sources will include information about Bhutan via press articles, magazine articles, and books. Since Mishra is a journalist, the wide array of articles and blog posts written by the subject for various media channels will be used to provide context to the interview. Given the lack of freedom in Bhutan, the focus will be on Bhutanese sources living in the United States.
Freedom of the press in Bhutan and other issues
The struggle for freedom of the press in Bhutan has been a rocky one. According to Freedom House, an independent watchdog group dedicated to monitoring the status of nations around the world, during the early half of the 20th century, Bhutan was ruled by a British-installed monarchy. Even after independence, freedom of the press was still limited. In the 1980s, Nepali-speakers were placed under further restrictions which precipitated a series of demonstrations by the Bhutanese People's Party (BPP), causing many Southern Bhutanese to flee to Nepal in the early 1990s: free elections only took place in 2007 ("Bhutan," 2012). "The authorities restrict freedom…
