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A row over Communist cronyism has erupted in China after the prime minister approved plans to build a controversial dam on a Tibetan holy lake, one of the country's last great wildernesses.

Tourists and Buddhist pilgrims flow through a dim quarter of a Lhasa temple illuminated by manhole-size butter candles in brass urns. Some stop to tuck a banknote or two in glass barriers in front of towering Buddhist images, including the Great Fifth Dalai Lama

After giving up his job as a programmer and leaving his native village for the datsan (temple) at Ivolga, the spiritual heart of Russian Buddhism, Chingiz Shagdurov found peace at last.

The Dalai Lama (Photo by STEVE PYKE)

In his youth, Lhamo Dhondrub enjoyed repairing clocks and watches at his home in Taktser in northeastern Tibet. That early affinity for technology and the sciences continues today, although he is now known by another name: His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama.

WOMEN'S EDUCATION: Adult illiteracy has been reduced to 43.8 per cent from 95 per cent in the 1950s - and the focus of the literacy campaign is women and girls in rual areas. (AFP)

Change has come to Tibet - some of it good, some not so good, reports GOH SUI NOI of The Straits Times China Bureau who visited the autonomous region recently.

Kangchen Tsering, 4, above, presents a scarf as a gift to Buddhist teacher Samdhong Rinpoche Friday at Oak Grove School in Ojai. Rinpoche, 64, speaks to students below. Rinpoche will speak again at Oak Grove School today.

Engulfed in a maroon robe on a sun-splotched wooden stage at Oak Grove School, Samdhong Rinpoche used gentle motions of his hand to select students whose arms were raised with questions.

Monks demonstrate impermanence of material world despite the fact that there were no signs telling them to be quiet, people whispered if they spoke at all in the Bullen Center ballroom Friday afternoon.