Succession uncertainty looms over Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday celebrations

Tibetan exiles gathered in India’s hillside town of Dharamshala on Monday to celebrate the 90th birthday of Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, according to a Tibetan calender.

The ceremony took place in Tsuglagkhang temple inside the complex where the spiritual leader lives.

The Dalai Lama, born Lhamo Thondup in northeastern Tibet in 1935, will turn 90 on July 6.

According to the Gregorian calendar, his birthday falls on July 6.

The Dalai Lama has made the hillside town his headquarters since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959.

Representatives of a Tibetan government-in-exile also reside there.

The Dalai Lama, revered as a deity by Tibetan Buddhists and reviled by China as a separatist, remains at the centre of a dispute over his reincarnation and succession plans.

China insists it has the sole authority to name his successor, but the Dalai Lama is yet to clarify questions about who will succeed him.