January 2, 2007–Kasur Dawa Tsering, former minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, passed away at his residence in Virginia on December 31, 2006, after months of illness.
In a message of condolence to the family, Professor Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, remembered Kasur Tsering as someone who had given the best part of his life to the service of a democratic government.
As a mark of respect for Kasur Tsering, offices of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in Dharamsala remained closed for one day, and officials and staffmembers gathered for an hour of prayer meeting.
Kasur Tsering was born in Tibet in 1948 and escaped to India following Chinese occupation of the country in 1959.
In 1969 he completed his high school in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie, becoming one of the first Tibetans to graduate from a Tibetan school in exile.
Kasur Tsering then joined Delhi University and obtained a BA degree in 1972, the year when he entered the civil service of the Tibetan Government-in-Exile.
His first posting was to Lugsung Samdupling, a Tibetan refugee settlement in South India, where he was appointed office secretary and interpreter.
In 1976 he was transferred to the Tibetan settlement in Orissa, an Indian coastal state on the Bay of Bengal. He served there till October 1981 as secretary of the “Tibetan Multi-purpose Cooperative Society”.
In 1981 he was moved to Dharamsala and appointed a mid-ranking official with the Tibetan Finance Department.
He went on to become finance secretary, and then chairman of the Tibetan Public Service Commission, and finally Finance Minister of the exile government.
On completing his term of office as minister, Kasur Tsering immigrated to the United States to join his family.
Not long after, he was appointed Representative of His Holiness the Dalai Lama at the Office of Tibet in New York; h e served in this capacity from October 1996 to May 1999.
He subsequently joined the Tibetan language program of Voice of America and served as a broadcaster until his illness.
Kasur Dawa Tsering is survived by his wife and two sons.
