This is a considerably revised and expanded version of the document, Losar Gift for Rangzen Activists, that I posted on Feb 25, 2009. This version has new information and illustrations. Last year when I was in India I gave a talk and powerpoint presentation based on this essay…

From their first encounter with the modern world Tibetans appear to have taken to such inventions as photography with relative insouciance – considering Tibet’s reputation as a “forbidden land”. We hear of a Tibetan using a camera, and even compiling a photography manual, around 1881-82. The cine-camera, of course, came a bit later.

In old Hollywood films of intrepid white explorers encountering savages in darkest Africa (or tribals in benighted Afghanistan) there is usually a decisive moment in the story when the bwanas (or sahibs) are captured and it appears they are done for.

When the Kashag issued its effusive eulogy of the late Ngabo Ngawang Jigme – within twenty four hours of his death (a record time for any official response to anything to date) - some people expressed surprise, even dismay at Dharamshala’s action. What such people failed to take into account in their reasoning was the [...]

Most Tibetans, it seems, want to celebrate Losar this year. I agree that a modest observance of our most important cultural holiday would not come amiss right now, no matter how grim our current situation…..

I may be getting paranoid but it seems to me that in most academic discussions and scholarly forums on Tibet, these days, a conscious effort is being made all round to avoid mentioning the word “rangzen”. Sometimes, of course, it happens that the term just has to be used and there is no judicious way [...]

WILDLIFE AND NATURE CONSERVANCY IN OLD TIBET
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One evening at McLeod Ganj, in the late ‘90s, a couple of my sarjor (new arrival) friends from Lhasa brought Taktra Rimpoche over to my house. He was the incarnation of the last regent of Tibet who died in 1951, or thereabouts. Rimpoche had been a small boy when [...]

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MELTDOWN IN TIBET
A personal take on the politics of water in Tibet.
A film by Michael Buckley
Wild Yak Films
reviewed by Jamyang Norbu

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Al Gore has come out with a new book (Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis) nicely timed to be in the stores before the Climate Conference in Copenhagen this December. Among the [...]

When the announcement was made that President Obama would not meet the Dalai Lama on the latter’s trip to the USA last month, the disappointment in the Tibetan world was palpable. I felt a little better after seeing this AFP headline “West Appeasing China on Tibet, says PM-in-exile”[Wednesday, September 16, 2009 17:43]. The report also [...]

In 1949, Lhalu, the Governor-General of Kham, arranged to speak to the Dalai Lama’s tutor, Trichang Rimpoche, at Lhasa over the radio. Robert Ford, the Tibetan government radio operator at Chamdo, wrote in his book, Captured In Tibet, that he wondered what the protocol would be for this somewhat unique situation.