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Bhutan This Week-- a look back into the week's top news stories from across the Kingdom. Watch Bhutan This Week on Saturday @10:30 pm

The National COVID-19 Taskforce has decided to facilitate travel for people stranded in different parts of the country due to the nationwide lockdown. However, only emergency cases, like in the case of death and sickness, will be considered.

Considering the huge potential of online learning for students, beginning the 2021 academic year, the education ministry will implement the Learning Management System. The system, which is first of its kind, will focus both on classroom and virtual teaching and learning.

Amidst the growing demand for vegetables triggered by the closure of borders due to the pandemic, the people of Tsakaling Gewog in Monggar are into commercial vegetable farming. This has also revived some 10 acres of land which remained fallow for over two decades due to wildlife menace and lack of irrigation water.

Despite the nationwide lockdown, the export of boulders and mandarins from Samtse remains uninterrupted. There is no restriction of movement of vehicles ferrying mandarins till the depot at the Food Corporation of Bhutan.

Although the nationwide lockdown has interrupted the academic session for classes IX to XII yet again, education will continue. The education ministry has directed the districts and thromdes to maintain continuity through online teaching and learning.

In what could be seen as a silver lining of the lockdown, the Royal Monetary Authority, RMA, is seeing a surge in digital transactions. In the first three days of the lockdown, the Central Bank recorded 821,816 domestic transactions in Thimphu alone, through various digital payment channels.

With the government focusing more on rural enterprises, youths taking up entrepreneurial jobs in villages are also on the rise. In Mongar, 29-year-old Shacha Dorji from Tsakaling Gewog becomes the first entrepreneur in the dzongkhag. He owns a mushroom spawn production unit. 

Upon the command of His Holiness the Je Khenpo, a Kurim is underway in all the religious institutions across the country.

Following the cluster outbreak of the Coronavirus at the Centenary Farmer’s Market area in Thimphu recently, the health ministry started a mass screening of the residents, beginning today.