Dalai Lama to visit Kargil

Dharamsala : Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, will visit forward areas in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir bordering China this week to attend religious functions, an aide said here Monday.

"His Holiness the Dalai Lama is reaching the Nubra Valley in Kargil for a week from July 21 where he will bless his followers and attend religious functions at different monasteries," Tenzin Taklha, joint secretary at the Dalai Lama's office, told IANS.

He said the Dalai Lama would also inaugurate a newly-built Buddha statute. Kargil is a Buddhist-dominated area.

This would the Nobel laureate's second visit to the state in less than a month.

Last month, he visited Gulabgarh, a Buddhist-dominated town.

The Dalai Lama has lived in India since 1959 heading a government-in-exile based in Dharamsala. India is also home to some 100,000 Tibetan exiles. The Tibetan government-in-exile is not recognised by any country in the world.