Thimphu, March 6, 2009: Bhutan Times has cut of its 15 employees out of 80 in its bid to sustain with the squeezing markets and downsizing return from the market.
Failing to get any return from its publication unit, which used to produce books on various issues, the management has also decided to suspend the unit. The publication, which brings out Bhutan Times bi-weekly newspaper in English and Dzongkha, said this was done reluctantly in order to reduce the overhead cost, thereby enabling the company to survive in the market. They said increasing media has posed threat to their survival. The country has only four newspapers including one daily.
The management said employees were given a month’s notice about their termination. However, the decision to recruit two new employees has irked the terminated workers.
The management further said those who could not perform well during their one-year evaluation were terminated from the job.
“It is purely unethical of the company to carry out such thing. The company could have rather transferred us internally rather than asking us to leave and recruiting new ones in our place,” one terminated employee told local media.
Dear Press lovers,
The above news from bhutan gives the clear picture about Human Rights/ press freedom in bhutan. The press in bhutan is nothing but thick black cloth strips in the hand of astute monarch to blind fold the whole world and enforce his draculian law on the subjects and evicted them from the country. If the Phrase “Pen is mightier than the sword” is true it has to be proved.
it is disheartening for the media workers to know about the grim situation of press and presmen in bhutan.instead of expanding a private media,the management has shown timidity of restraining the press in a pseudo-democracy. so instead of blooming full, press in bhutan is wilting too early.alas! it should not be terminated at all.
bhutan times is the only blunt media in Bhutan which we feel that there is “the freedom of press”.Instead of “termination” it should have been “retirement”.