Media: important to fight corruption

Source: Bhutan Observer, weekly

By: Tashi Wangmo

Bhutan: The media is a very important stakeholder to fight against corruption, said Paul Russell of Crown Agents, UK, who is in the country to prepare and develop the national anticorruption strategy for the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC).

ACC had proposed Crown Agents from UK to review its current strategy and operations in order to develop a Programme of Action (PoA) for operationalisation of the commission. Karma Thinlay, head of prevention division, ACC, said the agency will be giving expert inputs for the strategy.

Today, editors and journalists from all media organisations will have a meeting with Paul Russell. Regarding the media and the ACC, Paul said he learnt that the relationship was sound; there was mutual respect and the commission recognises that the media has an important role to play.

"I get the impression that the media is satisfied that the commission is prepared to be open and this policy of openness is going to continue." Paul Russell said media houses are happy when there is bad news and bad news is good for press to create interest in readership. Regarding getting information from ACC, he said the commission has enforcement laws and also the skill which was needed to ensure that the media is kept appraised of what ACC was Doing but without infringing on the integrity of an investigation.

"In general terms, not just in Bhutan but even elsewhere, transfer of information should always be done professionally and received professionally." Paul Russell said he was highly impressed with the people he had come across in ACC, with the level of education and understanding of the concept and commitment.

"The commission has all resources to become a highly competent institution and a model which will be copied by other institutions." While in the country, Paul will be meeting the key people in government and private organisations and civil society.

Before departure, he will make a presentation on the PoA and submit a written report to the ACC. A draft final report will be submitted by the Crown Agents within 10 days of his departure. The review will take into account the issues like corporate strategic issues, operational strategic issues - prevention, operational strategic issues - community education, human resource management, and other issues.

Paul has worked all over the world providing technical assistance, preparing strategic plans and developing national anticorruption strategies, preparing code of conduct and ethical behaviour and associated training programme.

Saranarthi Sarokar aired from Pathibhara, BNS appeals UNHCR

Source: www.bhutannewsservice.com

Damak, Nov 15: Bhutan News Service (BNS) has started airing a weekly radio program, Saranarthi Sarokar from local FM station, Pathibhara from today.

A statement issued by sarokar unit of the BNS stated that the radio program, aims at informing exiled Bhutanese on three options mulled current as solution to the protracted ,crisis exclusively goes on air on every Thursday from 7:30 pm to 8:00 pm.

The release also extended gratitude for those who supported for the common cause.

“We are committed for disseminating first-hand and fair information to the exiled Bhutanese in teh camps through radio”, stated the release.

BNS, in a separate release, has appealed United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Lutheran World Federation, other aid-agencies and Bhutanese citizens abroad to support such information campaign through radio.

The content generation done by BNS includes information on:- three options, core-group, UNHCR, International Organization of Migration, other aid-agencies, domestic life in camps, history of Bhutan, draft constitution and democratization, right to information and the like.

This is the only radio program run by journalists associated with BNS addressing the need of the hour. The same program is on air from Kathmandu, Nepal FM since 10 months.

Bhutan wonders if TV really brings happiness

Source: Reuters
By Simon Denyer

SOBSA, Bhutan, May 14 - Since cable television first arrived in her tiny village in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan two years ago, 55-year-old Kencho Om keeps getting in trouble with her husband for staying up late watching movies.

"My husband scolds me, he says at this age I should be spending my time saying my prayers," she said, sitting on the bare floorboards of her front room, the walls broken only by a shelf on which her small television set is perched.

"He says that after I die, instead of doing the funeral rituals, he will just put my body next to a television."

Bhutan's citizens first started watching television after then-King Jigme Singye Wangchuck bowed to the inevitable in 1999 and allowed it into his isolated Buddhist realm.

Since then, it has been blamed for destroying family life, bringing crime and juvenile delinquency to this peaceful land and undermining ancient traditions.

This is a country that lived in a mediaeval bubble a generation ago. When the first jeep arrived in the capital Thimpu in the 1960s, locals ran in fear of the fire-breathing dragon. Others brought it cattle feed.

Less than four decades later, Bhutan was suddenly confronted with 45 channels of the outside world.

Wangchuck is famous for proposing that Gross National Happiness was more important than Gross National Product, that traditions, trust and the environment were as important as the ruthless pursuit of material gain.

Yet almost overnight the Bhutanese were presented with an alternative vision -- of glamour and wealth -- and bombarded with advertisements for products they never knew they had missed.
Information and Communication Minister Leki Dorji says the government is beginning to wonder what it has unleashed.

"What we are asking is this: 'does television make you happier or less happy?'," he told Reuters. "It raises your expectations, probably making you more unhappy."

The people of Bhutan do not seem to agree. A study carried out by the information ministry in 2003 found that many people felt television had broadened their minds.

More than 66 percent said television had had a positive impact on society, while just 7.3 percent disagreed.

DESTROYING FAMILY LIFE?
Still, criticism persists. Petty crime and recreational drugs, almost unheard of a decade ago, have arrived in the last decade.

"Advertisements create desires, which cannot be satisfied by people's current economic position," wrote Phuntsho Rapten of the Centre for Bhutan Studies. "Crimes and corruption are often born out of economic desires."

But it is not just television which is to blame. Thousands of people have migrated from the countryside to towns, and many have not found jobs.

There are benefits, too -- television can bring families together in the evening, and keep fathers at home rather than out drinking. Alcohol is the leading form of death in Bhutan and a traditional pastime.

Yet many men share the reservations of Om's husband.

"I hate television," said Chencho Tshering, acting managing director of Kuensel, the state-owned newspaper, reminiscing about a recent night when the cable service went down.

His wife was deprived of her Hindi soap operas and his three daughters missed "Friends" and the Cartoon Network, but the whole family came together and started talking about the past.
"That was the best night I can remember since 1999," he said.

WRESTLING BANNED
The education children get from television is not something all Bhutanese parents relish. A craze for American wrestling swept the country's schools after TV was introduced.

Teachers have complained that city children were watching late into the night and were less focused in class as a result.

The government has responded by banning Ten Sports, which carried the wrestling, as well as MTV and Fashion TV.

It has not been an entirely successful experiment -- wrestling appeared on other channels, while football fans complain bitterly as the ban deprives them of Europe's Champions League.

Tshering Yonten, media director in the information ministry, says there was a need to regulate what people watch.

"The issue is not to deprive people, but the government has to take some responsibility."
Some Bhutanese worry that their traditions are threatened by the march of globalisation. Yet national culture is unlikely to roll over and die.

Young people dress like their foreign idols in the evening, but have to go to work in the traditional knee-length gown, or gho, worn with long socks.

Bhutan's public broadcaster, launched in a hurry three months after the king's move to allow television, is now broadcasting its own, increasingly popular soap opera.

And Bhutan has suddenly found its own film industry, which dominates the cinemas of Thimpu.
Back in Sobsa, her teeth stained red with chewing betel nut and her feet caked with mud, Om disagrees with the TV bashers.

Every night she escapes to Bollywood films of Salman Khan, to wildlife documentaries or American war movies.

"Without television, life is quite boring here," she said. "It is good to see the outside world. I've seen Japanese farmers cultivating rice, and it's almost the same as we do it here."

Journalists attend training on election reporting

Source: www.bbs.com.bt

November 08, 2007: Media has an important role to play in promoting healthy and vibrant democracy. In order to prepare Bhutanese journalists for the nation's first ever parliamentary elections a training on election reporting is being held in the capital.

About 15 journalists from the three new newspapers, the BBS Radio and Television and the two private FM stations are attending the training on election reporting in the capital.

The five day training will look at various issues concerning election reporting. They will be taught how to prepare and structure election coverage and organize and cover election campaigns, conduct interviews and gather information and cover the election on polling day and provide post-election coverage.

They will also be familiarized with journalistic principles and standards, fair and balanced reporting and dealing with vote rigging and other types of fraud in politics.

Peter Prufert, a former director of International Institute for Journalism in Berlin, Germany is one of the trainers. He said journalists have to play a very important role in the elections.
The training is being organized by Kuensel Corporation Limited with fund from the United Nation Development Program, UNDP.

(Source: BBS.com.bt)Media has an important role to play in promoting healthy and vibrant democracy. In order to prepare Bhutanese journalists for the nation's first ever parliamentary elections a training on election reporting is being held in the capital.

About 15 journalists from the three new newspapers, the BBS Radio and Television and the two private FM stations are attending the training on election reporting in the capital.

The five day training will look at various issues concerning election reporting. They will be taught how to prepare and structure election coverage and organize and cover election campaigns, conduct interviews and gather information and cover the election on polling day and provide post-election coverage.

They will also be familiarized with journalistic principles and standards, fair and balanced reporting and dealing with vote rigging and other types of fraud in politics.

Peter Prufert, a former director of International Institute for Journalism in Berlin, Germany is one of the trainers. He said journalists have to play a very important role in the elections.
The training is being organized by Kuensel Corporation Limited with fund from the United Nation Development Program, UNDP.

Images of Exile

Source: Nepali Times
How do Bhutani refugees see their world? Some were born in the camps and have never seen their motherland, all have spent the past 17 years as refugees.

Three organizations teamed up to train selected refugee journalists in a four-day photography training. These are some of the pictures the trainees took, the young refugees look inward to find their personal voices to tell their stories of camp life. As insiders, their pictures show us the true story of the daily life in the camps for the 100,000 Bhutanis who are now waiting for third-country repatriation. The photojournalism training was supported by Third World Media Network, Bhutan Press Union, Association of Press Freedom Activists-Bhutan and Drik India. Photos will be on display at the photo.circle Saturday 3 November 10AM-12PM at Sundhara Bakery Cafe.

Aita Maya Subba
Approximately 290 patients come to the UMP Hospital to get medicinal treatment everyday. The hospital runs from 8:45 AM and till 4PM. Simple cases are given treatment here, but complicated cases are handled by AMDA hospital.

Radhika Homagain
Ganga Maya Gurung and Sukh Maya Monger weave Dhaka topis, which they sell to earn a living. Support provided by UNHCR is not sufficient to meet the basic requirements of their family. According to the women, it is not an easy task because of their old age. They were evicted from their homes in Danabari by the government of Bhutan in 1990.

Yam Thulung
Khina Maya Kalikotae is frustrated that she has not been able to use the tailoring, bamboo basket making, knitting, embroidery and other skills that have been provided to her by various NGOs within the camps. She has not been able to start up a business due to lack of funds. Khina Maya is originally from Labshibhotae village in Tshirang District, Bhutan. She lost her hearing and speech due to severe unidentified illness when she was a child. Now she struggles to live the life of a widow, with no income of her own. Around 100,000 Bhutani citizens are leading a miserable life of asylum in exile in eastern Nepal.

Cheta Nath Khanal
Bhakta Bahadur Rai, 26, is a 10 +2 graduate and originally from Chirang district in Bhutan. Now he expresses the sorrows of separation from his homeland in the paintings and sculptures that he makes. He has opened a library and an art gallery in his hut to promote art and to manage daily expenses for his family of 10 members