Apr 3, 2013
Speculation is rife on how the high court will handle the appeal on the Gyalpoizhing verdict, the hearings for which formally opened yesterday in Thimphu.
But outside the high court yesterday, the chatter was about the Anti-Corruption Commission’s letters to relevant government agencies, asking them to terminate from service the civil servants, as well as the home minister and the speaker, convicted last month by the Mongar court in the Gyalpoizhing case.
Of the 16 people convicted [... Read More]
Apr 2, 2013
Imagine having to know all five political parties, their symbols, what they stand for, their party leadership and candidates representing each of them from 47 constituencies that add up to more than 1,000.
The paragraph that reads prolix is just how villagers in rural areas choose to describe how they feel about the number of political parties and the candidates that represent them.
Well, it is not all that bad, but still for rural folk to recognise [... Read More]
Apr 1, 2013
When the government pledged five years ago, as one of its promises, to establish a regional medical college in Thimphu, using JDWNR hospital as the institutional base, it sounded like trying to do too much too soon.
There were questions like who would make up the highly specialised faculty, and where would the bodies or cadavers that would be required for students to dissect as part of their medical education come from?
Today, five years later, those [... Read More]
Mar 30, 2013
Looking for a pit when the need to pinch a loaf grows desperate.
Coarse as it might sound, but this Bhutanese maxim quite sums up the three new political parties’ calling on the prime minister with three basic issues facing them on the eve of the looming elections.
They raised concerns over the difficulty in finding candidates to join them, particularly those they deemed potential, because of the apolitical nature of the civil service, the main pool [... Read More]
Mar 29, 2013
The issue of exempting manufacturing industries from excise duty has not made much headway because of the implications on government revenue.
At yesterday’s presentation to the private sector development committee, which comprises government ministers and secretaries to the government, implications to the government revenue once again came up.
The manufacturing sector has long argued that the excise duty paid in India for raw materials it imports should be refunded to them and not the government.
But the government [... Read More]
Mar 28, 2013
The nominations at the gewog level for aspirants, who want to contest a seat in the National Council, are almost over and at least 50 names have crossed the first hurdle.
While Dagana district has only one nominee going into the final elections, others have at least two, and some have as many as seven nominees, for now.
These numbers could change, if there is something wrong with the nomination papers that must be submitted to the [... Read More]
Mar 27, 2013
The sense that some 30 or so Chamgang prisoners give off, following the recent decision that allows them to spend the remaining term in “open air prison”, is that of fear and excitement.
Such a mixed feeling is only natural for people, who might have felt it like a dream to be sent to prison, more than a decade or so ago, until those bars slammed home.
According to many people, who served and continue serving behind [... Read More]
Mar 26, 2013
That members of our monastic community are not in the best of health, according to findings by medical professionals, is not surprising.
Yet such a state of affairs for a community that gives Bhutan its spiritual and cultural identity, and is in many ways the essence of Druk Yul, demands serious contemplation, followed by action to change it.
Following media reports on what ails the monastic community, the discussions so far has been focused on the goings [... Read More]
Mar 25, 2013
While most National Council members, 16 to be precise have resigned from office to re-contest, some already partaking in the nomination processes and one even having lost it, the ambiguity with regards the election law continues.
The question on the need for a quorum does not arise anymore because a majority have left anyway and besides the Parliament formally concluded its last session a couple of weeks ago.
Although election commission required members to resign should they [... Read More]
Mar 23, 2013
If there was one thing that the country’s first democratically elected government failed to do in its term, it was in using education as a way to cultivate democratic values among the youth.
We would be ill advised to believe and work towards imbibing democratic culture among people of the present generation, and probably half of the next.
It would be like sending the culture up a creek without a paddle, in that what we would then [... Read More]
