Bhutan Daily News 04-04-23

Common forums are usually an opportunity for the candidates to visit every gewog in their districts, meeting the people in person and announcing their pledges. At Lunana Gewog in Gasa, due to bad weather, the district’s National Council candidates took this opportunity, virtually. The election officials and candidates could not visit the gewog because of heavy snow. The only means of transportation is using the helicopter service but due to its unavailability and bad weather, officials couldn’t make use of it.

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Fuel prices dropped significantly across the country since Saturday. The price of petrol dropped by about Nu 12 and diesel by about Nu 13. At the Lungtenzampa fuel depot in Thimphu, petrol now costs Nu 69.39 a liter and Nu 70.97 for a liter of diesel. An official from the Trade Department attributed the drop to the fall in price at the source in India.

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The decline in investments, national elections this year, and the transition into a new five-year plan mean Bhutan’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate will slow down this year and next year. According to the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) latest Asian Development Outlook report, released today, the country’s GDP will slow down to 4.6 per cent this year and further drop to 4.2 per cent next year.

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The Supreme Court reversed the High Court’s judgment regarding the termination of the State Trading Corporation of Bhutan or STCBL’s former Chief Executive Officer, Kuenga Namgay. According to the Supreme Court, he had not only admitted to sexually harassing his female employees but also accepted the board’s decision and resigned from the company with benefits. The High Court last year ordered STCBL to compensate Kuenga Namgay as the Human Resource Committee’s decision to terminate him was against the Civil and Criminal Procedure Code.

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The Bhutan Construction and Transport Authority (BCTA) suspended issuing hard-copy of driver’s licenses in Thimphu and Phuntsholing for the last three months. This according to the authority is due to budget constraints. However, the office says printing resumed recently after the government provided an additional budget of Nu 7.5 M. However, there were no issues in other districts.

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The Supreme Court reversed the High Court’s judgment regarding the sexual harassment case involving ten staff of the Tagtse College of Language and Culture Studies. According to the Supreme Court’s judgment passed last week, reinstating the lecturers would set a bad precedent since their conduct had violated the Teacher’s Code of Conduct. The High Court in August last year ordered the reinstatement of seven lecturers and left the college to decide the reinstatement of the three convicted lecturers.

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Taking forward unique relationships of friendship & cooperation. PM Narendra Modi received His Majesty the King of Bhutan ahead of their talks. An opportunity to take stock of progress in bilateral ties.

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His Majesty the King paid his respects to Mahatma Gandhi at Rajghat.

Proposals to build three suspension bridges in Sarpang dzongkhag did not get the required support from the Dzongkhag Tshogdu (DT) members during the recent session.

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Proposals to build three suspension bridges in Sarpang dzongkhag did not get the required support from the Dzongkhag Tshogdu (DT) members during the recent session.