Government Secretaries until recently have had a fixed tenure of five years after which they retire, provided they don’t retire earlier due to the retirement age. However, a closer look at the Bhutan Civil Service Rules (BCSR) 2023 released in December 2023 by the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) shows …

Recently the Bangladesh Embassy issued a press release on the visit of the Bangladesh Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen. Buried in the press release was an important line which said that the Foreign Secretary of Bangladesh raised the issue of Sustainable Development Fees (SDF) for tourists and requested to reduce …

A slew of recommendations and reports have been submitted to the government on increasing tourist numbers from both the Ministry of Industry Commerce and Employment and other stakeholders. A senior official, on the condition of anonymity said, the government will study all the recommendations carefully but is unlikely to arbitrarily …

Chamgang Jail was meant to house around 400 to 500 prisoners in five blocks, but today it has around 700 plus prisoners and over half of them at around 370 are in due to drug cases. The Bhutanese talked to three such prisoners to gain an understanding of what led …

Stringent monitoring to ensure payback of loans For some time now there has been a lot of speculation on what the Nu 15 billion (bn) Economic Stimulus Program will be used for. The only thing known was that it would be used to stimulate the economy. The Prime Minister Dasho …

Decision on Saturday expected to come within next two weeks In the first week of March 2024 there was a lot of controversy as it was revealed that a Committee set up to study the Saturday off pledge had recommended not to give Saturday off. The government at the time …

For a while now teachers have not been happy with the bell curve resulting from the assessment or moderation of the Individual Work Plan (IWP) whereby a few have to be placed in the Partly Meeting Expectations (PME) category. Teachers felt particularly aggrieved with the PME in the bell curve …

But there is a determination to stick it out In the July 2022 to June 2023 financial year, a record 15,552 Bhutanese got visas to Australia, of which 8,187 were students and 7,365 were dependents, while from July 2023 to February 2024 a total of 8,387 Bhutanese got visas of …

The loan deferral is coming to an end for various sectors in June 2024 and after this, blanket deferrals of the past is unlikely. According to a reliable source the Royal Monetary Authority (RMA) is keen to let the banks decide client by client on who can pay or not …

24-year-old Sonam Choden met a gruesome death on the early morning of 31 March in lower Motithang below the Druk Green Power Corporation (DGPC) Office when she was assaulted by a 32-year-old man. However, Sonam is not just another crime statistic, but was a real person, with a real life …