May 3: At a time when the whole world was busy celebrating the World Press Freedom Day, May 03, the editorial board of a popular ‘news blog’ producing news stuffs for and by Bhutanese refugees, has declared the shut-down of a nearly 1.5 year old news site for indefinite time.
A news statement posted on the bhutanusa.com cited, what they call as “technical and managerial issues” as the reason to declare the closure of the site.
“The reasons arise out of the fact that the time period of the registration of this domain has run out and the web page designer (Himalayan Web Info. Pvt. Ltd, Kathmandu, Nepal) that was entrusted with the task of developing the site to its final form and hosting it with a different domain, globalbhutan.com, cheated us badly letting us not to blog about what we have been doing for nearly one and a half years.”
Himalayan Web Info, however, is yet to respond. The blog was started at the end of 2008 when full-scale resettlement was underway with a slogan “a common nest of Bhutanese in abroad.”
The statement further reads “We do not claim ourselves to be so scholastic and precisely perspective thinkers in regards to working with Butanusa.com but we did have a successful story in the past with an ever-increasing influx of visitors, viewers, well-wishers and above all, our advisors who, in some way served as beacon for our responsibility-laden ship to head its way surviving the Doldrums on a vast ocean of socio-political criticism and diverse ideological Tsunamis.”
Stating that the decision left the initiators incapable of keeping it up-to-date despite their continuous endeavor, the statement further mentioned that the decision was for an “indefinite” period of time.
The editorial board has also extended sincere words of gratitude to their valued visitors, senior Bhutanese reporters, Bhutanese intellectuals who supported them during hard times and above all, the team members, who, amidst the busy and hectic schedules of their daily living, worked devotedly to bring things updated on a regular and timely manner.
The board has also regretted for the inconvenience caused on the part of their valued readers, visitors and viewers as a result of its closure.
According to the statement, the site, Bhutanusa.com will be completely down from the mid-night of May 8.
