Dalai Lama admitted to Delhi hospital due to chest infection

Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetans, has been admitted to a hospital in Delhi due to chest infection.

News agency ANI quoted Tenzin Taklha, private secretary of Dalai Lama, as saying that the spiritual leader had to receive medical treatment due to a chest infection. "He will be spending the next two to three days in the hospital under medical treatment. His condition is stable," informed Taklha.

83-year-old Dalai Lama is revered by not just members of the Tibetan community in India and across the world but by people at large. He was provided with a safe passage to India in 1959 following China taking control of Tibet. Over the years, China has maintained a tight grip over Tibet and while the country does not recognise Dalai Lama as the rightful leader of Tibetans, the Nobel peace laureate is highly respected by others.

Over recent years, there have been growing concerns regarding who would succeed an ageing Dalai Lama. He himself told Reuters last month that his successor might just be in India, irrespective of who China may try to prop up. "China considers Dalai Lama`s reincarnation as something very important. They have more concern about the next Dalai Lama than me," he had said. "In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from here, in free country, one chosen by Chinese, then nobody will trust, nobody will respect (the one chosen by China). So that`s an additional problem for the Chinese! It`s possible, it can happen."