potency of words

Monday, August 20, 2012

Private media at the verge of demise

Lots of higher officials from different ministries and agencies and in particular the minister of labor and human resources stated that graduates shouldn’t be looking only towards becoming a part of civil service, during a week long National Graduate Orientation Program 2012 session. Lyoenpo Dorji Wangdi, minister of Labor and Human Resources, explicitly put forward a piece of advice that propelled the minds of those graduates who attended the session with a new anticipation. The advice reflects the trends that are now becoming a widespread reality throughout the world. "Self-employment" is one of the important ideas highlighted by the minister. Basically it includes involving oneself into starting one’s own business, possibly seeking entrepreneurship. This is a very popular solution to the rising unemployment problem across the globe.
However, it is very tough for the most of the young college graduates to lend their ear upon this issue. There is a need to lower their expectations upon such advices, especially if they are planning on joining or even starting a business of print media because private media is at the verge of demise.
A notification by the Election Commission of Bhutan (ECB) has been passed which states that all advertisements and public notifications related to elections and the ECB would be given only to state owned media houses like Kuensel and Bhutan Broadcasting Service (BBS). This reality has turned the advices to contradict with what is really happening around lately. What is the point of encouraging young graduates into such businesses if they were to come up with a move later only to shatter the lives of many? Is this an art of equality and justice practiced in Bhutan under Democracy? I don’t.
"This is blatant move attempted by the government to try and silence the media. It appears that the government is unable to bear honest criticisms. It seems the government doesn't want any private papers to operate during the 2013 elections".
The above statement is quoted directly from Bhutan Times, 19th August, 2012. Indeed, it has become apparent that there is a rising tension within the existing government, and they are actually fretting about the upcoming election. Debates and criticisms are a very important tools of Democracy through which people in general understands what kind of person lies beneath the outer appearance. Only through such activities will the people be able to recognize who are capable and who are not. And the media alone possess the capacity to educate people. However, this is not the case here in Bhutan regarding the notification given by the Ministry of Information and Communication about not entertaining private media houses with any advertisements about 2013 elections. The transition from Monarchy to Democratic Constitutional Monarchy in 2008, since then the government has been trying their best to make the new system familiar to its people. Yet, if we are to judge the recent steps taken by the MoIC, all the efforts made before are mostly what's been said, rather than putting into action. Therefore, it has been said that "We are a democratic nation, not democratized yet. We know what democracy is but we don't do democracy"
However, here I am not being critical about the decisions taken by the responsible ministry because they might have their own reasons to come up with the decision. Emerging such problem could be because they might not have envisioned the impacts or could be because of the government’s less effort to do a proper research. Sadly, those who were involved into this business have turned out to be the ones to suffer. Couple of years back they must have followed the similar advices of the government who don’t care about circumstances that now many confronts. Many employees currently working in private media agencies are of the view that they are now at the blink of becoming one of the people to go scrounging around different offices, with a file pursed within their sweaty fingers very soon because without any provision of advertisement in any media, how will a private media houses be able to survive survive.
Media houses, especially the private ones often includes articles from Opposition Leader's blog which talked about various issues i.e. the issue of Trowa threater, which turned out to be little exasperated to the existing government. As mentioned before there should be a criticisms to the steps taken by the government. No existing government and its steps are perfect throughout the world. Opposition leader, thus, comes into picture to point out the mistakes. He is doing his job very well, but it does not mean he is always right too.

 

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