Anand Sankar
rediff news (India)
April 29, 2009

While the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, marks his
fiftieth year as a Tibetan refugee in India, in
his Tibetan capital-in-exile, Mcleodganj in
Himachal Pradesh, it is business as usual.

The parliament-in-exile and its bureaucratic
satrap have been putting together a budget for
the current fiscal -- a sum of Rs 103 crore (Rs
1.03 billion) that will be spent on the
administration and welfare of a community that
numbers 1.4 lakh (140,000) today.

Going through the budget, the 'officials' are
keen to point out its salient features. Among
their new ventures is exploring options to set up
an independent co-cooperative bank to make credit
more accessible for themselves, plans to set up
BPOs (business process outsourcing units) in the
refugee settlements to provide employment to
graduate Tibetans and make organic agriculture the norm for the community.