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Restaurant and hotel owners of Panbari in Tading Gewog of Samtse are urging authorities to allow regional tourists and day visitors to explore beyond the Ammo Chhu bridge.  They are seeking authorization to allow the visitors to explore up to Panbari.  Currently, regional tourists are only allowed till the Ammo Chhu bridge. This, they say, has left businesses missing out on potential customers.

The residents of Dotey Gewog in Paro are asking for the widening and improvement of their gewog centre road. The six-kilometre stretch between Damji Zampa to Phusar Chiwog is quite narrow. Concerns have been raised amid growing vehicular traffic over the years. Maintenance work is currently underway but residents want the road widened as an effective solution.

With social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube easily accessible in the country, vlogs or video blogs creation is becoming a trend in the country. An increasing number of Bhutanese are now into online content creation. Although such contents are mostly for expressing themselves and for entertainment, vlogging has become a lucrative and steady source of income for some of them.

Call it the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and prolonged lockdowns or lifestyle change, people both within the country and worldwide are increasingly choosing ecotourism as their preferred choice of travel. In Bhutan, the trend is particularly evident in Chhukha, where the Jigmechu ecotourism campsite has seen a significant surge in visitors, especially from districts like Thimphu and Paro. Over the last three months alone, more than three hundred people have visited the campsite. This resulted in the community group earning more than Nu 100,000 in just a few weeks during the New Year festivities.

Residents of Lamga village at Athang Gewog in Wangdue Phodrang are requesting for a motorable bridge over Pharichhu. According to the locals, the wooden bridge located below their village gets washed away by flood every summer creating transportation problems for the community. The community remains cut off for months every monsoon due to the lack of a reliable motorable bridge over the stream.

The Handicrafts Association of Bhutan handed over food lab technologies worth almost Nu 2 M to the Zhemgang's Khengrig Namsum Cooperative yesterday. The equipment includes a grinder, vacuum packaging machine and freeze dryers among others. They were bought by the association with an additional budget from the Austrian Development Agency. The equipment is expected to enhance the cooperative's processing capabilities and reduce food waste.

Police in Haa have forwarded a gold smuggling case involving seven individuals to the Office of the Attorney General. Currently, six of them are in detention while one is at large. The incident reportedly took place in September last year and was reported to the police in December. According to the police, a man in his 50s who is one of the detainees reported the loss of 11 kilogrammes of gold to the police. He reportedly claimed that his son who was transporting the gold had been robbed. According to sources, three men, including the man’s son had reportedly smuggled 33 kilogrammes of gold into the country in total.

To foster inclusivity and create opportunities in sports for people with disabilities, the Bhutan Paralympic Committee has begun its Para Sports Camp in the capital. The sports camp is also aimed at fostering the development of para sports in the country. According to the Bhutan Paralympic Committee, the camp is the first of its kind. The two-week long training started last Monday.

9,972 eligible youth born in 2005 registered for Gyalsung as of Friday last week. As per the Department of Census, there are 12,965 children born in 2005. The registered youth will be the first batch to participate in the National Service training.

In an era where video surveillance cameras, commonly known as CCTVs, are embraced as a security measure, there might be risks that come with them. Numerous international news outlets have unravelled vulnerabilities accompanying the widespread adoption of these security cameras in recent years.