Social work, sermons to mark weeklong itinerary from Nov. 8New Delhi/Itanagar, Oct. 23: The Dalai Lama, the supreme spiritual leader of the Buddhists, will visit Arunachal Pradesh for seven days from November 8 though China continues to oppose his trip to the Himalayan state.
The deputy commissioner of Tawang district, Gamli Padu, today confirmed the spiritual leader’s visit. “Dalai Lama will arrive at Tawang on November 8. He is scheduled to fly from Guwahati and reach Tawang at 10am,” he said.
“His itinerary includes inauguration of the OPD block of a super-speciality hospital in Tawang, preaching sermons and planting trees at the Yidgha Choezin ground during his stay at the district headquarters till November 13.
“He will return to Itanagar on November 14 after a brief stopover at Bomdila. The Tibetan leader is expected to visit Theravada monastery at Vivek Vihar and Itanagar Gompa during his daylong stay at the state capital before leaving for Guwahati on November 15,” Padu added.
This will be the Dalai Lama’s fifth trip to Tawang, through which he had found an escape route while fleeing from Tibet at the height of Chinese aggression in 1959.
In the face of China’s persistent protest against the spiritual leader’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, his trip had to be cancelled last year.
China has opposed his visit again this year, but following New Delhi’s assurance that the government had no plans to revert his trip plan, the monks at Tawang monastery are gearing up to welcome their spiritual leader.
Hundreds of monks and devotees of the Dalai Lama are holding prayers and special rituals every day to make his trip smooth.
China had also condemned the visit of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who went to Arunachal Pradesh for election campaign, without naming him on the day the state went to polls. However, Singh today pledged to deepen wide-ranging relations with East and Southeast Asia, the assurance coming on the eve of the India-Asean summit and the fourth East Asia summit.
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