Bhutan's 31-year-old king to marry

The King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (left) and the future Queen of Bhutan, Jetsun Pema would be getting married in October. -- PHOTO: KUENSEL ONLINE VIA ANN

NEW DELHI - THE 31-year-old king of Bhutan, an Oxford-educated bachelor crowned in the remote Himalayan country in 2008, set up another royal wedding on Friday by announcing his engagement.

King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who helped usher in democracy in the Buddhist nation, revealed his intention to marry student Jetsun Pema in an address at the opening of parliament, local officials said.

'The king presided over the opening of parliament this morning and during the ceremony he announced that he would be getting married in October,' a secretary from the ministry of information, Mr Dasho Kinley Dorji, told AFP.

The announcement clears the way for another wedding in a year of royal nuptials that has already seen Britain's Prince William marry Kate Middleton in London in an event that captured the world's attention. In July, Prince Albert II of Monaco is to wed his swimming champion fiancee Charlene Wittstock.

'There will be a celebration, but His Majesty has requested that the government not make big plans and big celebrations,' Mr Dorji Wangchuk from the royal press office, told AFP by telephone from the capital Thimphu. 'It is because of the lack of resources (in Bhutan), and secondly to make the celebrations more intimate and personal,' he added.

The king has known Ms Pema, a student at a university in Thimphu, 'for quite some time', he added, saying more details would be released about her in due course. Bhutan, famed for its invention of Gross National Happiness to measure progress and its citizens' well-being, is one of the most remote and reclusive places on Earth, sandwiched between India and China. -- AFP