The Bhutanese Leading the way.
Response to ‘Bhutan’s press freedom index ranking drops by a record 12 places’
The dramatic drop in Bhutan’s press freedom ranking should come as no surprise especially this year. The DPT government in many ways has turned away from its original commitment to ensure a free press and strengthen the freedom of speech.
The government in many ways is already launching an indirect war on private and independent media houses by cutting down its advertisement budget and giving the remaining advertisement to BBS and Kuensel.
The government has also stopped all advertisement to The Bhutanese paper for some critical stories.
We can regularly see and hear about government ministers and bureaucrats bullying reporters into silence.
The Prime Minister in his recent tour defamed the media by accusing them of being owned by people who want to bring him down. The PM is perhaps mistaken that he is not the PM and perhaps some dictator who should not be criticized or ‘brought down’ for his mistakes.
We should realize that the older leadership of old ministers are too used to an old system where they had absolute power and could not be questioned. Therefore for them they want only that part of democracy which gives power and privileges and not the part that asks them to be accountable.
Bhutanese media was never free but even the limited freedom that it had got after democracy was introduced is rapidly and forcefully being quashed by a government that only pays lip service to democracy.
By Sonam
Response to ‘Three new Private colleges tied up in red-tape’
Bureaucrats do not think beyond their borders. The ease of doing business is the only way for the country to progress. There is a need to have a major cut in red tape. Policies should be dynamic and changes should be brought in if people cannot comply.Bringing in changes to current strict policies is also a good selling point for the aspirant candidates for Member of Parliament. I hate the poor attitude of bureaucrats towards private growth.
By Khoma
The govt does not want more private colleges and schools in FDI as there is an Education City coming up otherwise there would be no investors for the Education City so that is why I think govt is delaying the process. I think there must be some fishy things going on in the Education City business and maybe relatives of ministers are involved in the Education City. So forget about setting up private colleges and schools.
By Give No Happiness Get no Happiness
“PM says Govt could bear one third of NPL” Kuensel 30 May
I do not understand why PM Lotay is lobbying so hard for those with bad debts with their banks! I have been struggling, but still managing, to pay my mortgage and have cut my family spending to help meet my repayments. I find it so unfair that he is willing to lobby for bad debtors, yet me and many others have been making sacrifices to ensure we remain good with our banks. This is so unfair. Why is my tax money being frittered away paying off someone else’s bad debt? Are the bad debts or the bad debtors of these NPL more important than my good debt – or is it because I’m not in the construction, tourism or hospitality business who make the noise, so we good payers up with unfavourable treatment? Instead of wasting money helping the bad debtors, why doesn’t PM Lotay put whatever limited tax money Bhutan has to fixing things instead at our hospitals or even paying our people higher wages? I recall an adage that this is like “putting good money after bad and that doing two wrong things does not make it right”.
It must be election time – but it seems like the PM is quick to use our money to buy votes from those who are NPL or can lobby him. I hope he realises that there remain those who can vote, who don’t benefit at all from his government’s generosity with our tax money!