COVID-19: Tibetan parliament postpones 10th session till March 2021

Speaker Pema Jungney flanked by Deputy Speaker Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok and Secretary-General Tsewang Ngodup on both sides.

DHARAMSALA, 17 Aug: The Tibetan Parliament-in-exile(TPIE ) announced on Monday that it has postponed its 10th session due to the COVID-19 pandemic which originated from Wuhan, China.

The 10th session of the 16th TPIE scheduled to be held for 8 days from 16-24 September 2020 now stands postponed until March 2021, Speaker Pema Jungney announced today flanked by Deputy Speaker Acharya Yeshi Phuntsok and Secretary-General Tsewang Ngodup on both sides.

“This decision has been taken considering the rising urgency situation across the world caused by COVID-19 which originated in Wuhan, China,” read the press statement issued by the TPIE.

The supreme legislative body of the exiled Tibetans stated that “considering the rising urgency situation across the world caused by COVID-19 which originated in Wuhan, China, “the decision was “taken at the 327th Standing Committee meeting on 13 August 2020, in accordance to the Article 6 and clause 2 of Article 49 of the Charter of Tibetans in exile.”

” We were bound to take this decision as we have to take responsibility especially when His Holiness the Dalai Lama resides here in Dharamsala. And even if the session is held supposedly, because of the current international travel ban Tibetan Parliamentarians from outside of India will not be able to attend the session and Tibetan Parliamentarians in India too might find it difficult to travel with the ongoing pandemic,” the statement added.

Though the September session now stands postponed, the TPIE assured that matters and proceedings related to the parliament will be “executed without any negligence.”

“As usual, the annual reports of the Central Tibetan Administration’s (CTA) main office, as well as the institutions under it for the fiscal year 2019-2020 is being reviewed by the members of the Standing Committee and questions raised on the annual reports by the Standing Committee, will be submitted to the respective departments through the Kashag Secretariat,” it added.

The TPIE gave all the departments of the CTA a deadline of 20 Sept. “to file their precise annual reports and clarification to the questions raised by the Standing Committee in PDF format to the Parliamentary Secretariat.”

The questions raised by the parliamentarians and the clarifications provided by the administration for its annual reports the Parliament said will also be made available on its official website for the general public to go through.

The TPIE conducts two sessions each year, a budget session in March to discuss and approve the yearly budget of the CTA and a session in September to discuss the work reports of the seven departments of the CTA and institutions under it.

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