Sarbananda Sonowal, Pema Khandu at Day 1 of Tawang fest

GUWAHATI/ITANAGAR: The much-awaited Tawang Festival kicked off on Friday with Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu, his Assam counterpart Sarbananda Sonowal and US ambassador to India Richard Verma in attendance.
Describing Tawang as a holy land, Sonowal said it had tremendous potential for tourism. "Sharing some moments from the Tawang Festival," the CM tweeted photographs after his arrival in Tawang.Verma thanked the people for their hospitality.
The three-day festival, which started in 2012, showcases the rich and vivid culture of the district in particular and the frontier state in general. In the lead-up to the event, Khandu on Thursday visited the Gaden Namgyal Lhatse, popularly known as the Tawang Monastery, to a rapturous welcome.
Monks lined up the way to the monastery to welcome Khandu, who recalled a similar reception accorded to his father and former chief minister, the late Dorjee Khandu, in 2007. The goodwill shown to him by the monks was the result of his father's good works, the chief minister said.
Khandu promised to establish a health centre within the premises of the monastery, a proposal which had been submitted during the tenure of the late Kalikho Pul. He also stressed on the role played by the monastery's monks in maintaining peace in the sensitive border state and requested their cooperation in development activities. Urging youngsters in Tawang to preserve their unique tradition and culture, Khandu praised them for attending school in traditional attire once a week. "Loss of culture is loss of identity," he said.
During the day, the chief minister also visited the Tawang war memorial dedicated to the soldiers who died in the 1962 India-China war. He paid homage to the martyrs by laying a wreath on the memorial.
Khandu announced that His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, would visit the state in March 2017. Earlier, the chief minister, accompanied by health minister Jomde Kena, MLA Tawang Tsering Tashi, hydropower chairman T Appa and Tawang deputy commissioner Sang Phuntsok, had offered prayers to the Dalai Lama.