Indian position on Dalai Lama and Tibet unchanged: Sources

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 24

India has not changed its position on Tibet and the Dalai Lama, sources said on Tuesday.

Ahead of an informal summit meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, a source today said that Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale’s letter to cabinet secretary advising top ministers and government faces to stay away from official functions of the Dalai Lama that got leaked in media was not meant to be some signal to China.

Instead the source stressed that main function lined up by Central Tibetan Administration to mark the 60th year of the Dalai Lama’s arrival in India, had political overtones about which Delhi had certain reservations.

But for religious and cultural events of the Dalai Lama, India extends all support.

The official source also added that shifting of the ‘Thank You India’ programme from New Delhi to Dharamsala was a decision taken by the Tibetans themselves, and India had no role to play in it.