Editorial

The news that Food Corporation Bhutan (FCB) will continue to buy local rice despite poor marketability is welcome. It perhaps is the only way to encourage farmers to continue growing local rice and thereby increasing rice production in the country. Already, the Cabinet has instructed FCB to procure paddy from Wangdue, Punakha, Tsirang, Sarpang, and Samdrupjongkhar.

The monsoon is flooding not just the roads across the country, but also the social media pages.

Rapid urbanisation and ever-increasing demand for infrastructure development is pushing agriculture or food production to the backseat. Close to 700 acres of paddy fields have been lost to road, building, and township development; about 323 acres more to illegal conversion of wetland and natural disasters.

At least one teacher abandons the profession in Bhutan everyday.

The roar of the monsoon is getting louder by the day. Streams, rivulets and rivers have swollen to dangerous levels. We are yet to witness the full power of the season. Already, we have seen what it had to show us in the myriad ways it does.

The report of a pilot and two flight attendants testing positive for controlled substances is disturbing.

World Health Organisation’s South-East Asia report on mental health status of adolescent has found that Bhutan has the highest percentage (29.3) of adolescent tobacco users and also the highest percentage (12) of marijuana users in the region. About 24.2 percent of Bhutanese adolescents drink.

Something is not happening right in the employment sector. Or should we say, the unemployment sector?

Water shortage in a mountain country like Bhutan, blessed with abundant water resources with per capita mean annual flow availability of 109,000 cubic metres, the highest in the region, is probably the biggest ironies of our time.

The fiscal initiatives 2017 has reached a deadlock.