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

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…