(TibetanReview.net, May02’25) –Kasur Tashi Wangdi, one of the longest serving and most familiar faces in the senior rung of the Tibetan government in exile for decades, has breathed his last in Ottawa, Canada, on May 1, aged 78.
He last visited Dharamshala last year for the release on Jun 7 of his autobiography, My Life: Born in Free Tibet, Served in Exile, which was published by the Library of Tibetan Works Archives.
Born at Sangngag Choeling in Lhuntse County, southern Tibet’s Lhokha region, on Apr 15, 1947, Tashi Wangdi received his early education there before fleeing to India in 1959 in the aftermath of China’s invasion and occupation of his country.
After completing his school education in India and a short stint in the Tibetan government in exile, he studied in England on a British Council scholarship through Ockenden Venture, a refugee support organization, to earn a bachelor’s degree in Politics and Sociology from Durham University in 1973.
He resumed his service in the Tibetan government in exile in 1974 and rose through the ranks. He served as the minister of all but the finance department at various times, often while also being the Representative at the Bureau of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, New Delhi, from 1979 to 2002.
His diplomatic assignments also saw the Dalai Lama appoint him the leader of a delegation for holding negotiations with the Government of China in 1988. He was also appointed as the Representative at the Office of Tibet, Washington, DC, in 2005; and at the Office of Tibet, Brussels, in 2009.
Kasur Tashi Wangdi also stood for election as Kalon Tripa, the executive head of the Central Tibetan Administration, in 2011, the year in which the Dalai Lama later transferred the centuries-old political authority of his lineage of reincarnations to leaders elected by the Tibetan people through popular franchise.
