During the Indian Parliament’s winter session, Tibetan Youth Congress General Secretary Mr. Tenzin Lobsang, together with representatives from various Dharamshala-based NGOs, participated in Tibetan Advocacy Week in New Delhi.

As part of the initiative, the delegation held meetings with several Honourable Members of Parliament, where they presented key concerns of the Tibetan community. They also formally submitted a set of proposed agendas and respectfully urged the MPs to raise these issues during the ongoing parliamentary session, emphasizing the need for stronger support and attention to Tibet-related matters.

The six day Advocacy was held to foster strategic and coordinated advocacy efforts to strengthen Indian parliamentary engagement on Tibet-related issues and further stress on four key request:

1. To Recognise and reaffirm that Tibet was historically an independent nation, and to urge them to make a statement in Parliament advocating continued support for the Tibetan people’s struggle for freedom, justice, and their right to self-determination.

1. To Honour His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama on his 90th as global icon for peace and humanity. We urge the parliament members to make a statement in the parliamentary session acknowledging His Holiness’s unparalleled contributions to global peace and the promotion of India’s ancient civilisational values and the Government of India to publicly recognise and affirm support for Tibetan religious rights, including the Gaden Phodrang Trust’s sole authority to recognise the future reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, and no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter.

1.  To Advocate for the protection of Tibetan culture and language: Call for the immediate abolition of China’s colonial boarding school systems in Tibet. We urge you to call upon the Government of India to officially raise this critical human rights issue in all bilateral and multilateral meetings with Chinese government representatives, in line with the urgent calls from UN Special Procedures and Committees.

1. To Recognise the strategic and ecological significance of Tibet and its plateau: Tibet, often referred to as the Third Pole, is home to the largest reserve of freshwater outside the Arctic and Antarctic, feeding the major rivers of Asia, including Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej, and given its fragile ecological spheres, needs protection. We urge you to Press the Government of India to raise official concerns about China’s construction of the world’s largest hydropower project on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet, close to the Indian border. Call upon the relevant Ministries to support the Tibetan people’s call for an immediate moratorium on environmentally damaging projects in Tibet and advocate for the inclusion.