Business Bhutan's article on Hitler: a total mess up

A short "biography" of Adolf Hitler, together with three photos, appeared in today's edition of Business Bhutan, under the "Back in the Past" section. See the snapshots below.

After reading a couple of sentences from this piece, I realized that this was either a bad April Fools' Day joke (it's not), or that this text was written by someone with some serious language issues (maybe), or, most likely, this article is the output of automatic translation software such as Google Translate from an unreliable source.

It's Official: 3G Available in Paro

We blogged about it a couple of days ago, and now it's official: 3G is launched in Paro. Bhutan Telecom has posted the announcement on Facebook and Twitter, although I couldn't find anything on www.bt.bt. With all due respect to social media, there's also a website to maintain...

(Don't) Contact Us by Email

Ministry of Education prefers face-to-face communication

Websites of organizations are an important tool for communicating with their audience. The "Contact Us" webpage (or the bottom margin of the homepage) allows website visitors to further communicate with the organization behind the website. For those surfing the web, it is often very convenient to send an email. Hence, including a contact email address is a must.
Quite a few websites in Bhutan lack contact emails: MOIC, MOH and NSB have Contact Us pages that only list a postal mailing address, phone and fax numbers. NEC lists the same at the bottom of their homepage. For Kunesel, I could not find any contact information beyond a form to fill. The Ministry of Education only gives a map (in the Organizational Chart page).

The choice of email address to use for "contact us" purposes should be carefully considered. Typical email addresses are info@organization-name.com, contact@organization-name.org, etc. For example, the Druk Air website uses reservationparo@drukair.com.bt, Business Bhutan lists editor@businessbhutan.bt, and BOB uses customer.care@bob.bt. Such email addresses allow channeling emails to the right person in the organization.

What if an organization uses email addresses of individuals in the organization for "contact us" purposes? For example, the National Statistics Bureau GIS project page requests "Please support us by reporting any broken links to pema@nsb.gov.bt." I tried this email address and unfortunately it bounced. For whatever reason, this email address is no longer functional (maybe Pema left NSB, maybe s/he is no longer the webmaster, perhaps his/her email address changed, and so on). The JDWNRH Contact Us page lists ngawangtenzin@jdwnrh.gov.bt as the main Hospital Staff contact address, and the webmaster address is purna@jdwnrh.gov.bt. If and when new people staff these roles, the website will require updating. Also, records of emails sent to these addresses will be lost.

Low visibility in Thimphu

If you are in Thimphu, you must have noticed that air visibility in the last couple of weeks is unusually low. I took the following photo at around 10 am last week. Nothing much has changed since then, even on warmer days when the sun is out. I am starting to miss the days when the Buddha Dordenma was clearly visible from almost anywhere in Thimphu.

I'm not sure if this is humidity, dust or smoke, or perhaps some combination of all three. I could not find any reference to this phenomena in any of the newspapers. I could not find any useful information (visibility, humidity) on NHSM's website.

The National Environment Commission website reports the daily air pollution PM10 index. In Thimphu it is currently at around 80 µg/m³, which is below the national standard of 100 µg/m^3. This hints that pollution is not extraordinarily high. Also, the air is not brownish. (By the way, NEC's standards are quite permissive when compared to EU and US standards, but we'll leave that for another post.).

So what's causing this extraordinary haze? If you happen to have any information, do let us know.

P.S.: Thimphu's unique topography - a high-altitude city surrounded by mountains - together with the growing population and explosion in the number of cars, might spell a future air-pollution crisis, especially if the city is prone to thermal inversion.

Late morning in Thimphu

An invitation to hackers

I found this announcement on the JDWNRH homepage. It contains specific instructions on how to log into the new hospital information system, including the system's IP address, a sample username, and the password. Obviously it is intended for the hospital staff only. It should not be available on the public website.

www.jdwnrh.gov.bt

3G Available in Paro

Will we soon see tourists surfing the Internet while riding on mules up to the Taktsang Palphug monastery?

According to a recent tweet by photographer Gelay Jamtsho, speedy 3G is now available in Paro. It is still not officially announced by Bhutan Telecom, so perhaps it's still under testing. If you're in Paro with a 3G data card or smartphone, check it out and let us know!

P.S.: Gelay is offering stunning monthly desktop wallpapers here. January, February and March are already out. Be sure to check them out!

© 2012 Galey Jamtsho

The New Internet Gateway

Bhutan's international connection to the Internet was, until now, via a single gateway in Phuentsholing. Today, however, all this is supposed to change, and a second international link in Gelephu will finally start operating, according to the Kuensel ("2nd International Gateway: Bhutan will have 24/7 connectivity once this link is ‘lit’').

But will this provide a true 24x7 redundancy?