On a June 30th, we posted an article titled, "Bhutan Issues Special Stamp Featuring Sandip Soparrkar And Dance For A Cause" without checking with the concerned authorities. After receiving a couple of complaints from our readers we reached out to Karma Wangdi (Mr), CEO of Bhutan Post and received a reply from him stating that no such special stamps were issued. Here is the Copy of the full email we got from him.
Dear Gopi,
Thank you for your mail.
Bhutan Post has a product called personalized stamps. A personalized stamp is a stamp with the photo of a person/logo. The stamp can be used as postage, but our customers who are mostly tourists usually take them as souvenirs from Bhutan.
ANYONE- you, I or any person in the street, can get a personalized stamp made with his/her photo at our Thimphu Philately shop. As such, a personalized stamp bears NO special significance or recognition whatsoever of the person or anything. It is just a commodity product available to all our customers.
Mr Sandip had got his personalized stamps made through his agent in Bhutan, and that is the only fact. Rest are all made up!
1) Neither the Royal Government of Bhutan nor Bhutan Post has "issued" the stamps for the person as claimed. Getting personalized stamps cannot be regarded as stamps being issued by Bhutan Post in the name of that person. Issuing of stamps is a serious business and involves multi-layer vetting process.
2) I would also like to mention that I have never met the person nor any of his representatives, or for that matter never heard of the person until this incident!
I hope this clarifies. We appreciate your reaching to us to set the facts right and request your earliest action.
Please feel free to contact me for any clarifications you may require.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Karma
We sincerely thank Mr.Karma Wangdi for helping us out in this matter and our readers (Tshewang Tobde, Prashanti Pradhan & GOKAB for the talented Bhutanese ) for keeping us honest.
We sincerely apologize to our readers, Mr.Karma Wangdi and Bhutan Government to post a story without verifying all the facts.
