Doklaham conundrum: Bhutan King’s India visit may seek to cement mutual trust between New Delhi and Thimphu

News Snapshot:

Druk Gyalpo, or the fifth Dragon King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, is in India on an eight-day state visit along with his aesthete Queen Jetsun Pema, their children, and other state functionaries, starting 3 November, just weeks after Bhutan’s 25th round of boundary talks with China in Beijing. The fast and unprecedented progress of seven-year-stalled talks between Bhutan and China has made its de facto security umbrella, New Delhi, fretful — if not flurried, especially after the Doklam standoff in 2017. The monarch of the poll-bound constitutional democracy, King Wangchuk, first emplaned for Assam to make his second...