The Economic Stimulus Plan (ESP) Steering Committee has written to the Anti Corruption Commission on 16 January 2026 highlighting what action it has taken immediately  on the ACC’s findings and recommendation on the four ESP cases. As a follow up to the ACC letter and report the ESP Committee had …

There are four main reasons for the price increases under the new GST Tax regime. The first is that GST by itself increases prices of zero rated items under the old Bhutan Sales Tax by (BST) at least 5% and these are items like vegetables, cereals, medicines, fruits etc. This …

By Dorji Dhradhul (Creativity Catalyst) A Convergence of Vision, Evidence, and Timing Taken together, the survey findings do not merely endorse Bhutan’s past choices; they validate its future direction. They confirm that the values embedded in HVLV, mindfulness, regulation, respect, and responsibility are increasingly shared by a global constituency of …

By Jayati Ghosh NEW DELHI – There is a method behind the apparent madness of US President Donald Trump’s transactional, spheres-of-influence approach to geopolitics and the global economy. Nowhere has this logic been clearer than in his administration’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its ongoing efforts to …

In recent years, various government agencies have built a significant following on their social media handles and particularly on Facebook. This trend, which accelerated during and after the pandemic, was part of a larger trend of government agencies trying to communicate directly with the public on various issues. These pages …

By Dorji Dhradhul (Creativity Catalyst) An international perception survey was undertaken between April and June 2025 to assess the global relevance of Bhutan’s High Value, Low Volume (HVLV) tourism policy in the context of mounting challenges facing tourism worldwide. These challenges include the accelerating climate crisis, over-tourism and mass tourism …

By Shlomo Ben-Ami TEL AVIV – One year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has established himself as the most revolutionary US president in recent history. Whereas “America First” once seemed like an isolationist posture (not least to Trump’s MAGA base), it is now clear that it embraces a Hobbesian …

There is some controversy over the fact that some foreign nurses are being paid more than Bhutanese nurses. However, the sad reality is that if Bhutanese nurses are paid significantly better than now, then there would be hue and cry from other civil servants from other sectors. This is because …

By Yuen Yuen Ang WASHINGTON, DC – For a mathematician, 2025 might stand out for being a “perfect square”: 45 multiplied by 45, a rare symmetry. But its significance goes far beyond numerical elegance – it marks the year the postwar global order expired, and a new one was about …

By Yanis Varoufakis ATHENS – This was the year that the remaining pillars of the late-20th-century order were shattered, exposing the hollow core of what passed for a global system. Three blows sufficed. The first was Russia’s impending victory in Ukraine over Europe’s combined leadership. For almost four years, the …