Bhutanese competing for SDF’s top job

January 25 – Two Bhutanese will compete with 14 other applicants from the SAARC region for the post of Chief Executive Officer of the soon to be operationalised SAARC Development Fund (SDF) office in Thimphu. The post will be paid a monthly salary of USD 6,000 (tax free), which is about Nu 276,000 making it one of the highest paying jobs in the country. This is excluding the free accommodation, transport and “other admissible allowances and benefits”. Five Bhutanese have applied for the... Read more

Investigations over, reports awaited

January 25 – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has finally identified two laboratories in France and Thailand to quality test the samples of the pentavalent vaccine that the health ministry suspended four months ago after nine babies that received the vaccine died. The testing of samples say public health officials is one of the most important and the final step in the investigation process, that would help confirm whether the vaccine had any role in the deaths of the nine infants. The labs... Read more

Realising the GNH endeavour

January 24 – School principals are the most important and powerful means through which GNH values can be instilled in classrooms and schools, said Prime minister Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley addressing the school principals on January 11. Lyonchhoen spoke for almost four hours and at the heart of his speech, he explained the rationale behind bringing all principals together on an educating for GNH workshop. “You are the most important factor to realise this endeavour,” he said to... Read more

2 officials and 3 employees arrested for bribery

January 21: Phuentsholing police have arrested two customs officials and three employees of a private company for bribery. The incident took place last Wednesday. The arrest was made in the campus of the customs office in Phuentsholing. Three employees of a private company tried to bribe two customs officials to evade tax on a consignment that the company was due to receive. Sources told BBS that the two customs officials had also agreed to accept Nu. 180,000 as bribe. The police, who were tipped... Read more

Tobacco products confiscated

January 21: Customs Officials in Phuentsholing today confiscated tobacco products worth Nu. 21,000. It happened around 9 am following a tip off. The confiscated tobacco products include two cartoons of cigarettes, 200 packets of chewing tobacco Baba and 50 packets of Biris. The consignment was being smuggled in a DCM truck hidden under loads of vegetables. The truck was headed for Punakha. This is the second case this year. Last Thursday, customs officials confiscated tobacco products worth Nu. 75,000... Read more

PM spells out plans till end of term

January 21 – Within the next two years, the DPT government will not only try to fulfill what it has promised but go beyond it, Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley told a gathering of about a thousand people, comprising businessmen, civil servants, students and residents of Gelephu town on Tuesday. He said that, as promised, his government would try and link all the 205 gewogs with roads. However, places like Laya, Lunana and Soe in the north-western part of the country and Merak and Sakteng in the... Read more

Forest fire destroys 100 acres

January 6: The forest fire in Denchung under Udzorong Geog in Trashigang has been finally contained. The fire which broke out on December 31 has destroyed more than 100 acres of forest. The fire was however, put off with the help of nearby villagers and forest officials. The Chief Forest Officer, Kuenley Gyeltshen, said it was difficut to control the fire due to thick coverage of chirpine forest and rugged terrain in the area. The officer said the fire could have started by rolling boulders loosened... Read more

open source software (OSOSS) policy

January 1 – In a bid to cut expenses in the information technology (IT) sector, the government has adopted an open standards and open source software (OSOSS) policy. This means that, instead of purchasing proprietary software, which is usually expensive and not open source, like Microsoft products, government computers may one day be operating on free software like Ubuntu and OpenOffice. Such a move, expected to be implemented within the next five years, is also aimed at allowing local IT personnel... Read more

Bhutan Telecom to triple bandwidth

January 1 – Within this month Bhutan Telecom will triple its international bandwidth to 330 mbps (mega bits per second) to address congestion issues, expand coverage of broadband services and create the infrastructure for IT-related businesses. It recently upgraded its 45 mbps fibre optic London link to 155 mbps by leasing a new circuit through Bharti Airtel, India. This month it will also upgrade its second 45 mbps Hongkong link to 155 mbps with Reliance Globalcom, India. “98 percent of... Read more

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