India, China agree to pull back troops to resolve tense border dispute
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/india-withdraws-troops-from-disputed-himalayan-region-defusing-tension-with-china/2017/08/28/b92fddb6-8bc7-11e7-a2b0-e68cbf0b1f19_story.html
India and China have withdrawn troops from a disputed Himalayan region on their border, foreign ministries from the two countries announced Monday, defusing a tense standoff that had threatened to provoke armed conflict between the nuclear-armed Asian rivals.
For the past two months, Indian and Chinese troops had faced off on a plateau in the Doklam area in the Himalayas after Indian troops moved in to prevent the Chinese military from building a road into territory claimed by India’s close ally, Bhutan.
China had repeatedly and furiously denounced the Indian move as a direct infringement of its sovereignty, demanded an immediate and unconditional withdrawal, and warned that conflict was a real possibility if that didn’t happen.
On Monday, the two sides announced they had reached an agreement, with India saying its troops were disengaging and China saying it would redeploy forces in response. By the evening, India said both sides had almost completed their withdrawals.
It was not clear from the countries’ public statements whether Beijing had offered any concessions in return for the Indian withdrawal, such as agreeing to halt construction of the road.
China said it would continue to patrol and garrison the area, and to exercise its sovereign rights.
In a short statement, India’s Ministry of External Affairs said the two countries had maintained diplomatic communication about the dispute in recent weeks.
“During these communications, we were able to express our views and convey our concerns and interests,” it said. “On this basis, expeditious disengagement of border personnel at the faceoff site at Doklam has been agreed to and is ongoing.”
Later, it confirmed that forces from both sides were pulling back, adding that the process was “almost completed under verification.”
China’s Foreign Ministry said it was happy to confirm that all Indian “individuals and facilities” had withdrawn to the Indian side of the border. It also implied it would be reducing troop numbers in response to the Indian redeployment.
“The Chinese frontier defense force will continue to patrol and garrison in the Doklam area,” spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular news conference. “The situation at the spot has changed, and China will adjust and deploy according to the current situation.”
Hua said China will “exercise its sovereign rights according to the historical treaty and guard its territorial sovereignty.”
China maintains that the area in question was listed as on its side of the border under the 1890 “Convention Between Great Britain and China Concerning Sikkim and Tibet.”
Neither side, though, was willing to admit to having backed down.
“We remind India to learn the lessons from this incident, tangibly abide by the historical treaties and the basic principles of international law, and to meet China halfway, jointly guard the peace and tranquility of the border areas, and promote a healthy development of bilateral military relations,” Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said in a statement.
India said it had always insisted on resolving the dispute through diplomatic channels. “Our principled position is that agreements and understandings reached on boundary issues must be scrupulously respected,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.
An Indian foreign ministry official also told the Associated Press that the two sides had agreed to return to the “status quo.” The cable news channel NDTV reported that Chinese bulldozers had moved away and road construction stopped, according to its sources — implying that India’s demand had been met.
Earlier Monday, the state-owned China Daily newspaper warned that India stood “to face retribution” over the incident, arguing that New Delhi was complacent if it thought China was not prepared for military conflict if necessary.
But Beijing also wanted to resolve the dispute ahead of a meeting scheduled to take place in China this weekend of heads of state from the “BRICS” countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
“It’s hugely good news,” said Wang Dehua, an Indian studies expert at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.
“We have avoided falling into the situation where two major countries with ancient civilizations become hostile enemies,” Wang said, but he cautioned against declaring the incident a diplomatic victory for China.
He said China would try to address India’s security concerns when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits for the summit but would continue building roads in border areas.
Mao Siwei, former Chinese consul general in the Indian city of Kolkata, said the statements were deliberately “vague” because of the sensitivity of the issue and the reluctance of either side to show weakness.
“Judging from experience and common sense, I guess both sides have come to the following agreement: Firstly, on principle, China would stop its road building and India would withdraw its troops; secondly, regarding the timing, India would withdraw first and China would withdraw later.”
Some India experts also interpreted the statements — and New Delhi’s comments about having raised its security concerns — to mean that China had quietly agreed to stop building the road in question but would not say so publicly.
“I very much doubt that India would have agreed to withdraw unless it involved, at the very least, a commitment from Beijing that it would halt construction of the disputed road,” said Shashank Joshi, an analyst with the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“In these cases, clarity is the enemy of face-saving,” he added. “India will probably be comfortable with China spinning the agreement, because New Delhi is likely to have met its objectives: restoring the pre-June status quo. However, I imagine that India will now be vigilant, as China is likely to conduct more aggressive patrolling in Doklam in the future, having had its claims challenged in such serious fashion.”
The tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan was inadvertently swept up into the dispute when Indian soldiers moved from a nearby garrison into territory Bhutan contests with China to block a road-building crew from China’s People’s Liberation Army.
A few hundred troops from India and China were eventually deployed in a standoff that produced harsh rhetoric — mostly from the Chinese side — and sparked a period of tension between the neighbors not seen in decades, analysts said.
Although India and China have often sparred over disputed areas along their estimated 2,200-mile border — and fought a brief war in 1962 — this clash was unusual because it involved a third country and came at a time when relations between India and China were at a low ebb.
Whether India — long a patron of Bhutan — moved in after coordinating with Bhutanese forces, as the Indians have said, or deployed on its own, as China claims, is the subject of much debate.
Bhutan’s government was careful not to make comments and inflame tensions; aside from one brief statement from its Foreign Ministry, it maintained a calculated

Tibetan monk released after serving 10 years for sharing news of protest
August 28, 2017
Radio Free Asia, August 22, 2017 – A Tibetan monk jailed for 10 years for spreading news of a protest calling for Tibetan freedom was released from a prison in Sichuan this week after serving his full term, Tibetan sources said.
Atruk Lopo, a former chant master of Lithang monastery in the Kardze (In Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, was freed from Mianyang prison at around 10:00 p.m. on Aug. 21, Lithang Jamyang Tenzin, a Tibetan living in exile, told RFA’s Tibetan Service.
“The Lithang [county] police warned him not to speak too much in public before taking him to his home,” Tenzin said, citing contacts in Lithang.
“Local Tibetans were ordered not to greet him on his return, and he was brought back late at night,” Tenzin said.
Also speaking to RFA, Geshe Adruk Tsetan—a member of Tibet’s India-based exile parliament and a relative of Lopo’s—said that Lopo’s present state of health after a decade served in prison is still unknown.
Lopo was arrested on Aug. 21, 2007 by Lithang county public security officers as he called for the release of his uncle Ronggye Adrak, who had called out in public for the return of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama during a horse racing festival held earlier that month.
Adrak was later handed an eight-year term for subverting state power and attempting to “split the country,” while Lopo and a friend named Jamyang Kunkyen were sentenced to 10 and nine years respectively for sending photos of Adrak’s protest to “overseas organizations.”
A fourth man, a Tibetan named Lothok, was given a three-year term for providing information to “foreign organizations.”
The four, who were sentenced together, protested when their sentences were read out in court and were bundled away by police, witnesses told RFA in earlier reports.
“This is not a fair trial,” they called out. “We cannot accept this decision.”
Sporadic demonstrations challenging Beijing’s rule and calling for the Dalai Lama’s return have continued in Tibetan areas of China since widespread protests swept the region in 2008.
Reported by Sangye Dorjee for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Dorjee Damdul. Written in English by Richard Finney.

U.S. State Department reports widespread violations of religious freedom in Tibet
August 21, 2017
By Mollie Lortie
Tibet Post International, August 16, 2017 – The U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report for 2016, released on August 15, 2017, says the Chinese “authorities engaged in widespread interference in religious practices, especially in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries,” which has led to a continued ‘decline’ in the traditional monastic system.
The report says, “Across the Tibetan Plateau there were reports of forced disappearance, physical abuse, prolonged detention, and arbitrary arrest of people due to their religious practice, as well as forced expulsions from monasteries, restrictions on religious gatherings, and destruction of monastery related dwellings, according to media reporting and human rights organizations.
“Security forces maintained a permanent presence at some monasteries. In many Tibetan areas police detained monks and lay persons who called for freedom, human rights, and religious liberty, or who expressed support for the Dalai Lama or solidarity with individuals who had self-immolated. Several monks were detained without formal criminal charges. Restrictions on religious activities were particularly severe around politically and religiously sensitive anniversaries and events.
“Tibet scholars stated the Chinese government’s ban on minors entering monasteries and nunneries and restrictions on travel of monks and nuns threatened the traditional transmission and practice of Tibetan Buddhism. According to human rights organizations, authorities scrutinized and sought to control monastic operations and restricted travel for religious purposes, including to neighboring countries such as India and Nepal.”
“In the TAR and other Tibetan areas, authorities engaged in widespread interference in religious practices, especially in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and nunneries. There were reports of forced disappearance, physical abuse, prolonged detention without trial, and arrests of individuals due to their religious practices. Travel restrictions hindered traditional religious practices and pilgrimages. Repression increased around politically sensitive events, religious anniversaries, and the Dalai Lama’s birthday, according to numerous sources. Reportedly, authorities evicted more than 2,000 monks and nuns from Buddhist institutes at Larung Gar and Yachen Gar, destroying the homes where they resided and subjecting many of them to ‘patriotic re-education.'”
“The traditional monastic system continued to decline as many top Buddhist teachers remained or died in exile in India or elsewhere, and some of those who returned from India were not allowed to teach or lead their institutions.“ In the issue of reincarnation system, the report said, “The government continued to exercise its authority over the approval of reincarnations of Tibetan Buddhist lamas and the supervision of their religious education. In addition, authorities closely supervised the education of many key young reincarnate lamas. In a deviation from traditional custom, government officials, rather than religious leaders, managed the selection of the reincarnate lamas’ religious and lay tutors in the TAR and some other Tibetan areas. According to state-run media reports, in April it was announced that the database of 1,311 ‘living buddhas’ that it deemed ‘authentic’ was nearly complete. The Dalai Lama was not on this list.”
Regarding the spiritual leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the report stated, “Multiple sources reported open veneration of the Dalai Lama, including the display of his photograph, remained prohibited in almost all areas. Local officials, many of whom considered the images to be symbols of opposition to the CCP, removed pictures of the Dalai Lama from monasteries and private homes during visits by senior officials. The government also banned pictures of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, whom the Dalai Lama and the overwhelming majority of Tibetan Buddhists recognize as the 11th Panchen Lama. Punishments in certain counties for displaying images of the Dalai Lama included closing of venues, expulsion from monasteries, and criminal prosecution.”
“The new TAR Party Secretary Wu Yingjie said in September that countering the Dalai Lama would be the top priority during his term in office and later stated publicly on November 15 that the ‘Dalai Clique’ was the biggest threat to the region, and that the Party must exert religious, political, and economic control over monasteries. Authorities in the TAR continued to prohibit the registration of children’s names that included parts of the Dalai Lama’s name, or names included on a list blessed by the Dalai Lama.”
“There were instances of authorities confiscating and canceling previously issued passports as a way of preventing Tibetans from participating in the 34th Kalachakra Initiation by the Dalai Lama in India. Event organizers in India estimated as many as 7,000 Chinese Tibetans were barred from attending the 34th Kalachakra, some of whom were detained en route to the pilgrimage after they had left China. Authorities warned participants or any who were involved would face jail terms from 10 days to five years.”
Regarding the legal framework, the report states, “The constitution of the People’s Republic of China states citizens enjoy ‘freedom of religious belief,’ but limits protections for religious practice to ‘normal religious activities’ without defining ‘normal.’ The constitution bans the state, public organizations, and individuals from compelling citizens to believe in, or not believe in, any religion. It says religion may not be used to disrupt public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system.
“Within the TAR, regulations issued assert state control over all aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, including religious venues, groups, and personnel. Through local regulations issued under the framework of the national-level Management Regulation of Tibetan Buddhist Monasteries, governments of the TAR and other Tibetan areas control the registration of monasteries, nunneries, and other Tibetan Buddhist religious centers. The regulations also give the government formal control over the building and management of religious structures and require monasteries to obtain official permission to hold large-scale religious events or gatherings.
“To establish places of worship, religious organizations must receive approval from the religious affairs department of the relevant local government both when the facility is proposed and again before services are held. Religious organizations must submit dozens of documents in order to register during one or both approval processes, including detailed management plans of their religious activities, exhaustive financial records, and personal information on all staff members.”
The report also included other ways in which Chinese authorities were attempting to control religious activity, saying, “In many areas, monks and nuns under the age of 18 were forced to leave their monasteries. In March Shiqu (Dzachuka) County in Ganzi (Kardze) Prefecture reported the government had removed 300 minors from local monasteries following a January 2015 provincial mandate to remove all monks and nuns under the age of 18 from monasteries and Buddhist schools to receive ‘patriotic education.’
“According to government policy, newly constructed government-subsidized housing units in many Tibetan areas were located near township and county government seats or along major roads, with no nearby monasteries where resettled villagers could worship. Traditionally, Tibetan villages were clustered around monasteries, which provided religious and other services to members of the community. Many Tibetans continued to view such measures as CCP and government efforts to dilute religious belief and weaken the ties between monasteries and communities.”
Regarding self immolation, “Although the number of self-immolations has continued to decline, as in previous years some Tibetans engaged in self-immolation as a protest against government policies. During the year, three Tibetans reportedly self-immolated, as compared to seven individuals in 2015, 11 in 2014, and 26 in 2013. Some experts attributed reports of the declining number of self-immolations to tighter controls by authorities. Local authorities prosecuted and imprisoned an unknown number of Tibetans whom authorities said had aided or instigated self-immolations, including family members and friends of self-immolators, according to press reports.
“In one case of self-immolation from the year, the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) reported that Tashi Rabten self-immolated in Maqu (Machu) County, Gansu Province, in December while calling for the return of the Dalai Lama. According to the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, county police detained Rabten’s wife, two children, and other relatives when they requested the return of his body following the incident. According to RFA, police then beat and tortured Rabten’s wife and daughters after they refused to sign a document saying Rabten had self-immolated because of domestic conflicts, rather than as a response to government policies. Rabten’s wife and children subsequently signed the document, and authorities released them.”
Highlighting the detainment of religious prisoners, the report detailed that, “Limited access to information about prisoners made it difficult to ascertain the exact number of Tibetan prisoners of religious conscience, determine the charges brought against them, or assess the extent and severity of abuses they suffered. The U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China’s Political Prisoner Database included records of 649 Tibetan political prisoners who had been detained by October 11, and who were presumed to remain detained or imprisoned. Of the 649 political prisoners, 640 were detained on or after March 10, 2008, the start of a wave of political protests that spread across the Tibetan areas of China. Tibetan Buddhist monks, nuns, and teachers made up 277 cases, of the 640.
“There were reports of the arbitrary arrest and physical abuse of religious prisoners and prolonged detention of religious figures without criminal charges. In October authorities detained Lobsang Tsultrim, a monk from Kirti Monastery, for shouting slogans supportive of the Dalai Lama in public. It was reported that police severely beat Tsultrim; and at year’s end, he was awaiting trial at Wenchuan County Detention Center in Aba (Ngaba) Prefecture.
“In September family members located Lobsang Kelsang, a Kirti Monastery monk missing since his 2015 detention by police following a solitary protest while carrying an image of the Dalai Lama in Sichuan Province, in Deyang Prison after being sentenced to three years in a secret trial, according to RFA. RFA’s source said another Kirti monk named Adak was also secretly given a three year sentence in August.
“In June Lobsang Tsering, a monk from Kirti Monastery, was reportedly detained in Aba (Ngaba) County following a solo protest against Beijing’s rule in Tibet in which he wore a ceremonial scarf and carried a photo of the Dalai Lama, calling for his long life. He was reportedly beaten in custody.
“In December nine Tibetans were sentenced to prison terms of five to 14 years for their participation in the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday celebration the previous year. Some of them were monks from Kirti Monastery, and had previously been imprisoned and reportedly tortured.”
The State Department also chronicled reports of authorities targeting individuals in religious attire, including reports such as, “Sources continued to report security personnel targeted individuals in religious attire, particularly those from Naqu (Nagchu) and Changdu (Chamdo) Prefectures in the TAR and Tibetan areas outside of the TAR, for arbitrary questioning on the streets of Lhasa and other cities and towns. Many Tibetan monks and nuns reportedly chose to wear nonreligious garb to avoid such harassment when traveling outside of their monasteries and around the country.
“In some cases, authorities enforced special restrictions on Tibetans staying at hotels inside and outside of the TAR. Police regulations forbade some hotels and guesthouses in the TAR from accepting Tibetan guests, particularly monks and nuns, and required other hotels to notify police departments when Tibetan guests checked in, according to an RFA report and confirmed by several hotels.
Tibet was invaded by Communist China in 1949. Since that time, over 1.2 million out of only 6 million total Tibetans have been killed, over 6000 monasteries have been destroyed and acts of murder, rape, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment have been inflicted on the Tibetans inside Tibet. Beijing continues to call this a “peaceful liberation”.

New round of demolitions underway at Tibet’s Yachen Gar Buddhist Center
August 21, 2017
Radio Free Asia, August 15, 2017 – Authorities in western China’s Sichuan province have begun demolishing 2,000 residences of Tibetan clergy at the Yachen Gar Buddhist Center and are set to expel an equal number of monks and nuns from the complex by the end of the year, according to Tibetan sources in the region.
“Chinese authorities ordered the demolition of 2,000 houses of monks and nuns at Yachen Buddhist Center … [by the end of] this year,” one source told RFA’s Tibetan Service recently, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“The demolition began on Aug. 8 and the work is said to be ongoing at Yachen Gar, while the same number of monks and nuns [2,000] are also to be expelled from the Buddhist center this year alone.”
Sources said that the monks and nuns had been ordered to tear down any homes built with wooden materials, and that demolition workers would be sent by the local authorities to raze any concrete structures in the area. One nun is said to have been injured in the demolition.
Yachen Gar, located in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) prefecture’s Palyul (Baiyu) county and founded in 1985, until recently housed an estimated 10,000 monks, nuns, and lay practitioners devoted to scriptural study and meditation.
In April, sources told RFA that authorities had demolished at least 200 tents set up by Tibetan pilgrims visiting Yachen Gar to receive teachings and accumulate merit, citing difficulties posed by the encampments to the orderly management of the complex.
Following the beginning of the demolitions last week, a senior lama at Yachen Gar issued an appeal to the monks and nuns at the complex to “exercise patience and tolerance.”
“About 2,000 houses will be demolished this year and around same number of monks and nuns will be asked to leave the complex—this is an order from the powerful authorities and cannot be resisted, just as falling boulders from a mountain cannot be stopped,” the lama said.
“Most important is to remain humble and adhere to proper conduct, and things may get better. Also, it is important for all monks and nuns to take care of their health,” he added.
“The monks and nuns should exercise patience and tolerance under the stress of the demolitions and expulsion orders—this is crucial.”
Another Tibetan from the region, who also asked to remain unnamed, told RFA that the new order had placed “tremendous stress and hardship” on Yachen Gar’s Buddhist community.
“The demolition will cause a great amount of stress, as many monks and nuns will lack accommodations and be forced to leave,” the source said.
“Yachen monks and nuns are solely focused on Buddhist practice and not involved in any form of politics,” he added.
Restricted access
Authorities have been restricting access to the sprawling complex and areas nearby, with foreign visitors drawing particular scrutiny from police, sources told RFA in earlier reports.
In April, following the demolition of the pilgrim tents, sources told RFA that Chinese surveillance and other tightened security measures at Yachen Gar had become growing causes of concern for the center’s resident monks and nuns, and that it was increasingly difficult for news about the complex to reach the outside world.
They said that while Yachen Gar has internet service, residents had been reluctant to speak out about what was happening at the complex for fear of retaliation by authorities.
Restrictions on Yachen Gar and the better-known Larung Gar complex in Sichuan’s Serthar (Seda) county are part of “an unfolding political strategy” aimed at controlling the influence and growth of these important centers for Tibetan Buddhist study and practice, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said in a March 13 report, “Shadow of Dust Across the Sun.”
“[Both centers] have drawn thousands of Chinese practitioners to study Buddhist ethics and receive spiritual teaching since their establishment, and have bridged Tibetan and Chinese communities,” ICT said in its report.
At the end of June, a senior abbot at Larung Gar said that Chinese authorities had destroyed 4,725 monastic dwellings over the course of a year at the complex, with a total of more than 7,000 demolished since efforts to reduce the number of monks and nuns living at the sprawling center began in 2001.
The abbot said that more than 4,828 monks and nuns had also been expelled since 2016, with many forced back to their hometowns and deprived of opportunities to pursue religious studies.
Many thousands of Tibetans and Han Chinese once studied at Larung Gar Academy, which was founded in 1980 by the late religious teacher Khenpo Jigme Phuntsok and is one of the world’s largest and most important centers for the study of Tibetan Buddhism.
Reported by Kunsang Tenzin and Lhuboom for RFA’s Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

At UNESCO, India and China battle over Tibetan medicine
August 21, 2017
By Divya A
Indian Express, August 18, 2017 – As Indian and Chinese troops face off at Doklam on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, their countries are locked in another, lesser known but longer running, argument — this too involves Tibet, but is playing out in a theatre far away.
In April this year, The Indian Express reported that India had sent Sowa-Rigpa, the Tibetan system of medicine, as its official entry for UNESCO’s prestigious Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The problem was Beijing, too, had sent a similar entry, claiming Sowa-Rigpa as its own.
Chinese experts attacked India for staking claim to the legacy of ancient Tibetan medicine. “The Tibetan medicine system originated in Tibet and has developed on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in northwest and southwest China,” Qin Yongzhang, an ethnologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was quoted as saying by the state-run Global Times.
The Indian entry, titled “Sowa-Rigpa, knowledge of healing or science of healing”, was submitted in March. The Chinese dossier, “Lum medicinal bathing of Sowa Rigpa, knowledge and practices concerning life, health and illness prevention and treatment among the Tibetan people in China”, had been submitted a few years earlier.
Both entries will come up for consideration in the UNESCO list in 2018.
Qin said India had nominated Sowa-Rigpa to enhance its soft power, gain confidence and benefit financially, but “the truth is that Tibetan medicine not only originated but has developed in China”. Tibetans in exile in India may help in the practice and spread of Sowa-Rigpa, and claim that it has been developed in India, Qin was quoted as saying.
In its defence, the Ministry of Culture has said India had been preparing the nomination dossier for Sowa-Rigpa “for many years”. Top levels of government had got involved in the attempt to speed up India’s bid ahead of the 2018 session of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, sources said.
So, what is Sowa-Rigpa?
Commonly known as the Amchi system of medicine, it is believed to have originated in the 3rd century BC, and is one of the world’s oldest and best documented medical traditions. The heart of the tradition is in Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, but it is also practised in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Darjeeling, Lahaul & Spiti and Ladakh. Outside India, Sowa-Rigpa is practised in Tibet, Mongolia, Bhutan, parts of China, and Nepal.
The Indian entry is supported by a detailed letter of recommendation written by Geshe Ngawang Samten, vice-chancellor of the Central University of Tibetan Studies in Sarnath near Varanasi. “Even though Sowa-Rigpa originated in Tibet, it is a part of the Indian culture since it is being practised here for more than a millennium,” Prof Samten has written. “Also, it has a lot of influences of Ayurveda.”
China’s dossier, Samten says, apparently calls Sowa Rigpa a “Tibetan-Chinese” medical system. “There is no nomenclature as ‘Tibetan-Chinese’, either it’s Tibetan or it’s Chinese,” he adds. The original Tibetan Institute of Sowa-Rigpa is in Lhasa, Tibet; the government-in-exile “reopened” it in Dharamsala, and teaches courses informally.
Sowa-Rigpa is under the purview of the AYUSH Ministry. To highlight the Indianness of Sowa-Rigpa, the AYUSH website says, “The majority of theory and practice of Sowa-Rigpa is similar to Ayurveda. The first Ayurvedic influence came to Tibet during 3rd century AD but it became popular only after 7th century with the approach of Buddhism to Tibet. Thereafter, this trend of exportation of Indian medical literature, along with Buddhism and other Indian art and sciences were continued till the early 19th century.”

Opinion: China must change its flawed environmental policy in Tibet
August 14, 2017
By Lobsang Sangay
The Guardian, August 7, 2017 – s Australia continues to battle a water crisis and the challenges facing the world’s driest inhabited continent, Tibet on the other hand is Asia’s water tower, its principal rainmaker and the largest source of fresh water, feeding over a billion lives in Asia including China.
At an average elevation of 4,000 meters above sea level and with an area of 2.5m sq km, Tibet is the world’s highest and largest plateau. It’s nearly two-third the size of the European continent. If Tibet were still a sovereign nation it would be the world’s tenth largest. It has the largest concentration of the world’s tallest mountains and is called the earth’s third pole because it has the largest reservoir of glacial ice after the two poles. Tibet is also a treasure trove of minerals, oil and natural gas reserves and a leading producer of lithium in China.
The Chinese scientists have over the years been proposing an increase in nature reserves across Tibet considering the fragile ecosystem on the plateau. In April this year China unveiled its grand plans on turning the entire stretch of Tibet into a national park.
The Chinese government has been declaring more and more national parks and nature reserves across Tibet in recent years, and this is a welcome gesture. The Chinese government must take into consideration the fragility and delicate nature of Tibet’s environment and reign in the factors that contribute to environmental crises in Tibet: rapid urbanisation, transfer of Chinese population into Tibet, unchecked mining on Tibet’s sacred mountains, and damming of Tibet’s rivers to facilitate hydro power projects.
In light of such robust projects, Tibetans are not only deprived of their traditional way of living, but are made peripheral beneficiaries of the projects.
The real beneficiaries are the Chinese officials who pocket their share of the gain, the Chinese companies and the Chinese employers benefitting from the economic opportunities.
We are not against Chinese developmental projects in Tibet per se, but we propose that the real beneficiaries of any development must be Tibetans in Tibet. Any projects that China undertake must be environmentally sustainable, culturally sensitive and economically beneficially to local Tibetans.
China’s rolling of its strategic and economic imperatives in Tibet has greater implications on the larger environmental consequences caused by climate change.
Today, the Chinese government’s flawed environmental and developmental policies have turned this resource-rich plateau and fragile ecosystem into a hub of its mining and dam building activities. This not only changes the water map of Asia for the worse but also contributes to an environmental crisis, which in turn contributes to climate change across Asia. The rising temperatures on the roof of the world make Tibet both a driver and amplifier of global warming.
2016 has been a year of natural disasters: a glacial avalanche in Aru in the Ngari region (Western Tibet), and mud floods and a landslide in Amdo (eastern Tibet). Between June and July 2017 alone, four distinct cases of floods were reported in Kham (south east region of Tibet). These are the cumulative effect of climate change.
More cases of natural disasters are imminent. The Chinese government must consider these impending threats and accordingly orient its urban development project towards mitigating the increasing threats posed by climate change.
China has escalated military control over Tibetan borders, expanded mining based on the rich resources of the Tibetan plateau in order to fuel China’s economic development and has dramatically expanded infrastructure with a strategic road and rail network. It seeks to raise the productivity of the industrial cities of Xi’an, Chongqing and Chengdu at the foot of the Tibetan plateau and to address the progressive scarcity of water resources in the North and North-East of China with water sourced in Tibet.
Tibet is facing two critical issues: Its political and environmental future. Of the two, the latter is a bigger issue given the implications for Asia and the rest of the world.
Dalai Lama says strong action on climate change is a human responsibility.
Tibet symbolises the three crises that confront Asia today; a natural resources crisis, an environmental and a climate crisis. These three are interlinked and potentially pose a threat to the ecological wellbeing and climate security not just of Asia but even of Europe, North America and Australia. According to leading scientists, the recent heat waves in Europe are linked to loss of ice on the Tibetan plateau. A team led by Hai Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Environment Canada in Quebec found that the greater snow-cover in Tibet, the warmer the winter in Canada.
Such formidable scenarios demand greater global attention and a forward-looking leadership to assuage the larger affects of an environmental crisis befalling Tibet. The world leaders must act prudently and not allow political constrains to dwarf redressal mechanism at institutional level to an impending global environmental crisis.
Veerabhadran Ramanathan from the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego has rightly said that “our understanding of global climate change would be incomplete without taking into consideration what’s happening to the Tibetan plateau.”
Tibet’s environment impinges on regional and global security. The global efforts to reign in China’s policies in Tibet underpinning an oversight of the importance of Tibet’s environment and sensitivity over its fragile ecosystem, must be robust. In the age of climate change the future of Asia and by extension that of our planet Earth hinges on the developments in Tibet, the roof of the world.

India raises Tibet concerns with China
July 31, 2017
Press Trust of India, July 28, 2017 – There is no quid pro quo with China on the issue of “sufferings” of the Tibetan people and stapled visas being given to Arunachal Pradesh residents by Beijing, government said on Thursday.
There is no quid pro quo with China on the two issues, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told the Rajya Sabha replying to questions on the two issues.
Responding to supplementaries on the issue of stapled visa to Arunachal residents by China, she said “the issue has been raised in every bilateral meeting at various levels, be it at my level or that of the Prime Minister. The issue has been raised by us.”
Asked about India’s stand on Tibet, she said “we used to earlier talk of One China policy, but we used to say that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India. And when we say that, we want that China should also recognise this. Our policy has been made very clear.”
On the issue of whether India remained a mute spectator towards the alleged atrocities in Tibet, the Minister said “We are not sitting as a mute spectator. Whenever there are differences, we raise them.”
She said the Dalai Lama wanted to visit Tawang and “we allowed him to do so”. This is not the first time but the fifth or sixth time that he is visiting that place.
“Whatever issue that is there that goes against India’s interest, we lodge our protest,” Ms Swaraj said.
To a question, she said there was no policy under which Chinese companies are denied security permission. She also objected to a member raising the issue of a particular Chinese company in the House.
She said that denial of security permission to one particular company cannot determine the relations between the two countries. She said it done under a process and if a Japanese or a Korean company applied, they get it first.
To another question on the cancellation of a visit of Indian journalists to Tibet by China, Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar said there is no official information from China about it.
He said Indian journalists are independent and take their decisions independently and it was between them and the Chinese authorities about the visit to Tibet.
“As far as the visit being cancelled, officially we don’t have any information. It is between the journalists and the host country,” he said.
Mr Akbar said in 2014, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Xi Jinping in Astana, a close development partnership issue was raised and both countries decided to increase people-to-people and media contacts and decided to do everything to bring the two countries together.
“We will continue to make such efforts and take them forward,” he said, adding that a high-level media forum has been established to further strengthen media exchanges. The last meeting of this media forum was held in Beijing in February 2015.
“Government has no details of such a visit because the government was not approached by the host agency or the journalists for assistance,” he said in a written reply.

Tibetan man self-immolates in India, 2nd this month
July 31, 2017
By Lalit Mohan
Tribune News Service, July 29, 2017 – Charred remains of an unidentified Tibetan youth were found in a forest below the Dalai Lama temple at Mcleodganj on Saturday causing quite a stir in the area.
While many Tibetans suspected that it could be another act of self-immolation, police say anything in the matter could only be said after post-mortem.
Sources said the body was noticed by a Tibetan passerby at about 4 pm. He told Tibetan settlement officials that the body of a Tibetan was on fire in a forest, who further informed police.
As the word spread a large number of residents of Mcleodganj started gathering at the spot. Many Tibetan websites cast apprehensions that this could be another self-immolation by a Tibetan.
In last two years more than 150 Tibetans have committed self-immolation to protest against the Chinese rule in Tibet. While most of them have committed self-immolation inside Tibet, two have taken the extreme step in India.
Sources added that the place where charred remains of the youth have been recovered is used by Tibetans to invoke the deities through incense ceremonies.
The DSP (Headquarters) who was present at the spot said a forensic team has been called to examine the body and the spot where it was found.
A Tibetan youth who had committed self-immolation in Varanasi two weeks ago was cremated in Mcleodganj by the Tibetan Youth Congress.
Another Tibetan youth who had committed self-immolation in Delhi was also cremated in Mcleodganj.