DHARAMSHALA, April : A new report by a Tibet advocacy group has found that China’s “systematic and persistent” policies of “cultural repression and destruction” in Tibet contained “elements of cultural genocide” and warned that if unchecked, these policies present risk factors for “conventional genocide.”

The report titled, ‘60 Years of Chinese Misrule: Arguing Cultural Genocide in Tibet’ was released by the Washington based International Campaign for Tibet on Wednesday, coinciding with the 23rd birth anniversary of the XIth Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.

Speaking at the release of the 148-page report, Mary Beth Markey, President of ICT said the report makes a “persuasive case” that elements of cultural genocide are occurring in Tibet.

“As such, we are calling for stronger international efforts to address and reverse China’s culturally destructive policies and practices in Tibet,” Markey told reporters.

Source: tibet.net, 29-04-2012

BANGALORE: Kalon Gyari Dolma, accompanied by Mr.Sonam Topgyal, Secretary, DOH, and Mr.TashiPhuntsok, Chief Representative, Bangalore, met with Chief Minister and former Chief Minister of Karanataka and also the Chairman of Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) in Bangalore.

Shri D V SadanandaGowda, Chief Minister, hosted the delegation for a breakfast meeting at Krishna – his official residence on April 23. The meeting lasted for an hour. A very fruitful discussion occurred prior to the arrival of the Chief Minister with Dr. S. M. Jaamdar, Principal Secretary to the Department of Home, Karnataka. Dr.Jaamdar participated in the meeting with the chief minister as well.

DHARAMSHALA, April 27: In continuing mass protests in Tibet, around 3000 Tibetans carried out a peaceful march in front of Chinese government buildings in Zogchen, Dege region of eastern Tibet on Wednesday.

The Tibetans were protesting a renewed wave of security clampdowns and raids in the region, including at the Zogchen monastery and private homes of local Tibetans. Although the exact reason for the raids were not clear, exile sources have said that several Tibetans were severely beaten and many were arrested during the raids that were conducted earlier this week.

By Shobhan Saxena

Source: Times of India, April 2012

On March 26, before sunrays could sneak into the room and wake his roommates, Jamphel Yeshi had already left his bed. He folded his blanket , placed it on the mattress, and put two books by the Dalai Lama on top of it. Then he hanged a rosary on a nail and strung two pens to it with red silk threads. Soon he picked a bag and walked to the gompa – Tibetan temple at Majnu ka Tila – and quietly ate bread with tea at a stall. After that he took a bus to Jantar Mantar, where a few hours later he turned into a ball of fire. When the van taking him to a hospital left Jantar Mantar, Yeshi was conscious. As his friend Sonam carried him to a stretcher, Yeshi spoke. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked Sonam. “He wanted to die at the protest,” says Sonam, fighting his tears. “He knew what he was doing.”

Yeshi always knew what he was doing. Born in a village in the Tawu county of Kham region in Tibet in 1985, Yeshi was youngest among four brothers who lived with their widowed mother in a small house. Their life was simple but hard. On a typical day, Jamphel would walk to school, work in the field, take the cows for grazing, collect wood in forest, and eat tsampa – roasted barley – and dried yak meat with butter tea. But he desired something more. He wanted to learn Tibetan language. “He was very hard working and honest. He learnt Tibetan by himself after he stopped going to school,” says Kesang Norbu, 26, Yeshi’s friend who grew up with him. “It was not possible for a poor Tibetan boy to go to a higher school, and they don’t teach our language in Chinese-run schools.”

DHARAMSHALA, April 11: Indians living in northeast India have come out in strong support of a “peaceful democratic” regime in Tibet, where Tibetans can “take their own decisions to cherish lives.”

Members of rights body, civil society groups, and media persons in the state of Assam, while speaking at a public gathering at the Guwahati Press Club on Tuesday declared that a progressive democratic government in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital will be “beneficial for nearly 60 million people” of the Indian northeastern region.

The northeast Indian states of Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh share boundaries with Tibet, while other states in the region heavily depend on rivers, including the Brahmaputra, that originate from the Tibetan plateau.

Source: Tibet.net,  07-04-2012

TOKYO: On the final day of Kalon Tripa’s visit to Japan yesterday, sixty Japanese Parliamentarians from five political parties of Japan expressing their grave concern over tragic self-immolations of Tibetans in Tibet, made an unanimous appeal to the Chinese government to end its decades of repressive policies by addressing the Tibetans’ grievances.

“We call on the Chinese government to respond positively to outstanding visit request from the Special Rapporteur on the freedom of religion or belief and halt the repression of human rights immediately,” the parliamentarians said in their appeal.

“Years of restrictions on Tibetans’ rights are the underlying causes of the protests by way of self-immolations. It is clearly time for the Chinese government to fundamentally rethink its approach by listening to and addressing the Tibetans’ grievances,” it said.