Kuensel

Kuensel is the oldest newspaper in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan. Until 2006, Kuensel was the only print medium in the country. Due to the history of its origins, the newspaper is considered close to the government. Kuensel, which roughly means clarity or accuracy, was founded in 1965 as an internal government bulletin. The oldest documented edition is that of June 15, 1967. [1] In 1974 a printing press was imported from India and installed in Thimphu. Kuensel was initially published in English, but soon an issue of the newsletter in Dzongkha followed, which was printed with Dzongkha block letters specially designed for this purpose. In 1986, the Kuensel government bulletin was converted into Bhutans first and at that time only newspaper published weekly by the Ministry of Communications Department of Information. In 1988 Kuensel had a total print run of 12,500 and was published in Dzongkha, Nepali and English. The Nepalese voice output was discontinued after the conflict over t...