INDlA has refused two Western film directors permission to shoot a feature film on the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan leader who has been living in exile in northern India for 47 years.
Official sources said India does not want to offend China, with whom it has an ongoing border dispute, by granting Martin Scorsese of the US and Jean Jacques Annaud of France permission to film Kundan and Seven Years in Tibet in India.
China is highly sensitive about its occupation of Tibet and constantly tries to pressurise India into playing down the activities of the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetan activists living there often agitating against Beijing.
According to officials in the federal information and broadcasting ministry, involved with overseas filming projects, shooting for the two films had been cleared by the foreign ministry but turned down by the Prime Minister's office for "diplomatic" reasons last week.
The two directors are now looking for other locations, disappointed with India's attitude which has allowed several Western news networks such as the BBC to film documentaries on the Dalai Lama.
China and India fought a bitter war over their border dispute in 1962 but diplomatic relations between the two improved in the mid-1980s.
A 1993 agreement signed in Beijing by the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Narasimha Rao, to maintain peace along the disputed line of control put the 34-year-old border dispute on hold.
Both sides agreed to focus on confidence-building measures like pulling back troops from the border and exchanging visits by senior leaders and military officials.
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