Monthly Archives: December, 0

This year records the lowest teacher attrition rate in six years with a total of 163 teachers leaving the profession as of March this year, 317 less than last year, according to the 2020 Annual Education Statistics. The report states that reasons for leaving the profession include voluntary resignation, superannuation, and expiry of the contract, among others.

The National Council today discussed the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) Convention on Combating International Terrorism, Transnational Organized Crimes and Illicit Drug Trafficking. The convention, if ratified, will facilitate and strengthen collaboration and sharing of information amongst the member states.

Potential private sectors will continue to receive Fiscal Incentives as the National Assembly yesterday decided to extend the fiscal incentives by a year and a half. The National Assembly today adopted the Fiscal Incentive (Amendment) Bill of Bhutan 2020. The current Fiscal Incentive was supposed to expire by the end of this month.

Over a hundred acres of forest is lost to a fire in Bali chiwog under Chhubu Gewog in Punakha in the last three days. Forest officials, DeSuups, armed forces and local volunteers contained the fire today. 

The United Kingdom becomes the first country to approve Pfizer/BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for widespread use. The vaccine, which offers up to 95 per cent protection against COVID-19 will roll out next week in the UK.

The Royal Monetary Authority facilitated the exchange of Bhutanese currency to Indian currency for traders of Mela Bazaar and Garage in India. More than 100 Indian traders availed the services at the Samdrup Jongkhar border gate yesterday.

The National Council today adopted a new section under the Mines and Minerals Bill 2020 to allocate mines and minerals lease to state-owned enterprise (SOE). As of now, the mines and minerals extraction in the country is given to a private individual on lease which many parliamentarians says is against the provisions of the constitution.

With many farmers starting commercial farming and producing on a large scale over the years, the issue of sale and export of the produce has been persistent. And in this session amid the pandemic, the parliamentarians of the National Assembly questioned the Agriculture and Forests Minister on plans and strategies to improve the sale of farm produce.

People living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) said they face less stigmatisation these days compared to the previous years. Earlier, people living with HIV faced stigmatization and discrimination including from their own family members. They said less stigmatisation is attributed to awareness.

All tourists who paid for their trip to Bhutan in 2020 and have not cancelled their bookings will be offered USD 250 voucher by the Tourism Council of Bhutan (TCB) as a token of appreciation when they visit the country.