Opinions

The mild-mannered assistant commissioner in charge of ethnic and religious affairs in Lhasa, a Tibetan with sparkling eyes called Tu Deng, had for some time been patiently answering questions by pesky Indian journalists on a Chinese government-sponsored tour of Tibet last month.

This article is based on my dissertation titled "Experience of Poverty in Tibetan Community" prepared for the fulfillment of a Masters Degree in Development Planning and Administration.

Tibet would have been liberated; the loss of face would have made China retreat into its shell instead of becoming an aggressive imperialist....and of course India's Marxists would have been defanged.

The old amala rephrased her question "I mean are you Amdo, or Khampa or Toepa?" Lobsang gave the same defiant answer again. In a brash tone he said "Tibet".

"You come home, raise your hand on your wife/husband, it's an assault. But when the same hands are raised on your children, it's discipline".

July 6th was the Exiled Tibetan Spiritual and Political Leader, 1989 Nobel Prize winner, honorable highness, Dalai Lama's 69th birthday. A celebration attended by 5,000 devotees was held in Paris, and the occasion was, no doubt, honored by many of the 100,000 Tibetan refugees around the world.

Flying over Ladakh, the landscape appears bleak, brown and empty across a corrugation of immense, lifeless ranges, so it feels as though we’re landing on the moon.

The Chinese army officer sits on an old jerrycan with a wide nasty smile, legs stretched, cigarette in one hand; the Tibetan translator, bespectacled, moves around with a file blabbering something; the Chinese soldiers all grim faces

Twenty years ago, India went through one of the most traumatic experiences of her modern history. Indira Gandhi, the then prime minister, had to order the Indian army to assault the Akal Takht occupied by armed Sikh militants in the Golden Temple complex at Amritsar.

Indians excel in sciences. Is not information technology one of the factors behind giving a terrific shine to India's image abroad? Unfortunately, the same probably cannot be said about Indians' mastery of geography and history, at least as far as the media is concerned.