Contact is taking a holiday!

Contact is taking a break after 25 years of bringing you news of Tibet and Tibetan issues. We are celebrating our 25 years by bringing you the story of Contact and the people who have made it happen, and our archive is still there for you to access at any time, and below you can read the story of Contact, how it came into being and the wonderful reflections of the people who have made it happen over the years.

When and how Contact will re-emerge and evolve will be determined by those who become involved.

News From Other Sites

Chinese influence in Hollywood has cost me film roles

by Ben Hoyle, Los Angeles, April 20, 2017, The Times In 1993 Richard Gere, a friend of the Dalai Lama, denounced Tibet’s “horrendous human rights situation”MANDEL NGAN/ GETTY IMAGES   Richard Gere has spent decades criticizing China’s occupation of Tibet in interviews, at street protests and even from the Oscar read more →

China to host biggest summit of the year on New Silk Road

by Reuters, April 20, 2017 9:01 AM (UTC+8), China will gather its friends and allies together for its biggest diplomatic event of the year in May, a summit on its New Silk Road plan, with most Asian leaders due to attend but only one from a G7 nation, the Italian read more →

The night my father escaped Tibet

  By Rignam Wangkhang My father, Tsering Dorjee Wangkhang, was one of the first two Tibetan refugees to come to Canada in 1970. His long journey from Tibet to Canada was full of hardship, suffering, and hope. Tsering was only 13 years old when his entire family uprooted their lives and read more →

Does Tibet connection exist in top-level leadership promotion in China?

Will he be the next to be promoted? Guizhou Communist Party boss Chen Miner at a meeting in Beijing. Photo: Reuters/Stringer By Tenzin Tseten, originally published on Asia Times – April 3, 2017 Leaders connected to Tibet at some stage in their careers get fast-tracked to the Politburo or its read more →

The Brahmaputra River and Sino-Indian Relations

By Asma-Khan Lone The present controversy surrounding the Dalai Lama’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh, especially to the Tawang Monastery, a revered symbol of Tibetan Buddhist tradition, is not a stand-alone episode of bilateral bickering between antagonist neighbors India and China, but part of a larger strand of strategic powerplay underscored read more →

Nervous China ramps up religious persecution

by Doug Bandow, Japan Times President Xi Jinping’s China is becoming a more fearful place. The government has cracked down both on dissent and contact with the West. Religious persecution also is rising: the communist god that failed fears competition. A new Freedom House report details how “the authorities have read more →

On the trail of the mighty mountain momo

By Tsering Namgyal,  April 15, 2017 – Asia Times Momos, or Himalayan steamed dumplings, must have a long history, but tracing their origin is akin to solving a culinary mystery of Da Vinci Code complexity. In a very short span, momos have become one of the most sought-after types of read more →

Tibet bill introduced in U.S. House and Senate

The Sunday Guardian – 16 April 2017 A bill has been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the United States of America (USA) seeking unhindered access to Tibetan areas to US officials, journalists and common citizens, something which is routinely denied by the Chinese government. read more →

Cross signals across the Himalayas

By M K Narayanan, The Hindu – 15 April 2017 India must realise that China is no longer willing to remain a status quo power The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was in Arunachal Pradesh recently, which has greatly ruffled China’s feathers. Any reference to Arunachal Pradesh (‘Southern Tibet’ as read more →

Both India and China nominate Tibetan medicine system for Unesco honour

Written by Divya A | New Delhi | Published:April 12, 2017 4:43 am INDIA HAS nominated the Tibetan medicine system of Sowa-Rigpa for inclusion on Unesco’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list at a time Beijing too has staked claim to this form of cure by sending a similar entry to the read more →

New India, different China

Ram Madhav – 13 April 2017 – The Indian Express Global Times, one of the most influential media organs in China, carried a provocative editorial on India last week in which it asked the rhetorical question: Is India capable of withstanding a “geopolitical” onslaught from an economically and militarily stronger read more →

What China doesn’t get about Dalai Lama’s popularity in Tibet and India

Claude Arpi, DailyO, 12 April 2017 The Dalai Lama’s ongoing visit to Arunachal Pradesh, particularly to Tawang, the Land of Mon, has generated a great flow of ink. As usual, the Chinese were the first to shoot; their propaganda machine is far better organised than their Indian counterparts, who have read more →

“Government propaganda makes Chinese people think that Uyghurs deserve to be suppressed and killed”

Rebiya Kadeer is probably the best-known activist —at least in the Western world— of the Uyghur national movement. A former entrepreneur and philanthropist, Kadeer held several official positions in China during the 1990s. Everything changed in 1999, when she was arrested and sentenced to prison, officially for having passed on read more →

Dalai Lama says Tibetan people should decide on his succession

By Sunil Kataria | REUTERS Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said on Saturday the Tibetan people should decide if they wanted to continue with his institution, adding that he wanted to convene a meeting of senior monks this year to start discussing his succession. China, which brands the Nobel Peace read more →

The Dalai Lama Factor in Sino-Indian Relations

Shashi Tharoor, Project Syndicate, 10 April 2017 NEW DELHI – Relations between India and China haven’t been particularly warm in recent months. But they have lately taken on an icy chill, with Chinese leaders furious over the Dalai Lama’s visit to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China read more →