Bhutan News Service (BNS) is an independent news agency run by

Bhutanese refugee Bhutanese refugees are Lhotshampas ("southerners"), a group of Nepali language-speaking Bhutanese people. These refugees registered in refugee camps in eastern Nepal during the 1990s as Bhutanese citizens deported from Bhutan during the protest ...

journalists since 2004 from Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal. It is solely operated by refugees who were mostly born or brought up in refugee camps and without previous media experience. When over 100,000 of Bhutanese refugees started taking shelter in UN-administered

refugee camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displaced peo ...

s of Jhapa and

Morang Morang District ( ne, मोरङ जिल्ला ) is located in Province No. 1 in eastern Nepal. It is an Outer Terai district. It borders with Bihar, India to the South, Jhapa to the East, Dhankuta and Panchthar to the North, and Sunsar ...

districts in eastern part of Nepal, they felt the need for vocal media in the refugee community. Several failed attempts were made before the advent of the Bhutan News Service. The Bhutan News Service was founded in 2004 by a small group of Bhutanese refugee youth It emerged in as an alternative to traditional forms of media publications. Initially, the works were limited to simply blogging. From 2006, BNS went online through its own news portal. Currently, around two dozen reporters and over half a dozen of editors from various countries contribute for the news service on voluntary basis. The news agency has not been legally registered since Nepalese laws do not entertain registration of any entity owned and run by foreign nationals in Nepalese soil. According to former Indian diplomat

Phunchok Stobdan Phunchok Stobdan (born 20 December 1958) is a former Indian civil servant and served as the Indian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. He was also a senior fellow at Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, and was the founding president of th ...

, the regular Bhutanese media avoids reporting on Chinese border incursions and other strategic matters, so that the Bhutan News Service and other such exile media are the only sources available for reliable information.P. Stobdan
In the Tri-Junction Entanglement, What Does Bhutan Want?
The Wire, 11 July 2017.

References

{{reflist News agencies based in Nepal Mass media in Bhutan 2004 establishments in Nepal