Dalai Lama calls off South Africa visit

October 04, 2011 16:03

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has called off his visit to South Africa to receive an international award named after Mahatma Gandhi, saying its government finds it "inconvenient" to issue a visa to him and his entourage.

The Dalai Lama, 76, was slated to leave for the African nation on Thursday on a nine-day visit, but he has not received his visa yet, the spiritual leader's office said.

"His Holiness was to depart for South Africa on October 6 but visas have not been granted yet. We are, therefore, now convinced that for whatever reason or reasons, the South African government finds it inconvenient to issue a visa to His Holiness the Dalai Lama," the statement said.

« Back to LIVE

TOP STORIES

Kejriwal's aide Bibhav Kumar arrested in Swati Maliwal 'assault' case

Bibhav Kumar was produced before Metropolitan Magistrate Gaurav Goyal who sent him to five-day police custody after the police sought his remand to question him about the incident and to retrieve data from his phone.

Back to back terror attacks in J-K: Ex-sarpanch killed, tourist couple shot at

Terrorists struck at two places in Kashmir on Saturday night, killing a former sarpanch in Shopian and injuring a tourist couple from Rajasthan in Anantnag, two days ahead of Lok Sabha elections in Baramulla.

I dedicate my man of the match award to Dayal: Faf du Plessis

Pacer Yash Dayal kept his cool in a tense final over to seal a 27-run win against Chennai Super Kings and send RCB through to the play-offs.

IPL PIX: Spirited RCB knock out CSK; qualify for play-offs!

A spirited performance from their bowlers saw Royal Challengers Bengaluru outclass Chennai Super Kings by 27 runs to qualify for the play-offs.

Banking industry doyen N Vaghul dies at 88

Veteran banker N Vaghul, who led the transformation of ICICI into a private sector lender, died on Saturday afternoon due to health complications. He was 88. Vaghul took over the reins of ICICI, then a public finance institution, in...