Dalai Lama honours Virbhadra Singh

DHARAMSALA - The Dalai Lama honoured Indian Steel Minister Virbhadra Singh here Saturday to mark 50 years of the arrival of the Tibetan community in Himachal Pradesh.

“His Holiness the Dalai Lama honoured Virbhadra Singh by presenting him a Buddhist scroll,” an official of the Tibetan leader’s government-in-exile told IANS.

Thanking the Dalai Lama for accepting Dharamsala as his exile capital, Virbhadra Singh, a five-time chief minister of the state, said the Tibetan leader’s ideals of peace and non-violence had won him admiration.

The Dalai Lama recalled his association with Virbhadra Singh and recalled the difficult circumstances that forced him to quit Tibet in 1959 and seek refuge in India.

The Nobel laureate described himself as a “son of India”.

The Dalai Lama has lived in this Indian hill station since fleeing his homeland. Some 34,000 Tibetan refugees are settled in 14 settlements based in different parts of Himachal Pradesh.