table border=1 align=right cellpadding=4 cellspacing=0 width=300 style="margin: 0 0 1em 1em; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 95%;">|+ Central Tibetan Administration ###|+ Bod gZHung dGa' lDan PHo Brang PHyogs Las rNam rGyal ###| align="center" colspan="2"|### The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), officially the Central Tibetan Administration of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is a government in exile headed by _Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, which claims to be the rightful and legitimate government of Tibet. It is commonly referred to as the Tibetan Government in Exile.

Tibet is under the administration of the People's Republic of China, a situation that the Central Tibetan Administration considers an illegitimate military occupation. The position of the CTA is that Tibet is a distinct nation with a long history of independence. The current policy of the Dalai Lama, however, is that he does not seek full independence for Tibet, but would accept an autonomous status similar to that now held by Hong Kong.

The CTA is headquartered in Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama settled after fleeing Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule. It claims jurisdiction over the entirety of the Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai province, as well as parts of the neighboring provinces of Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan - all of which is termed "Historic Tibet" by CTA.

The CTA exercises many governmental functions in relation to the Tibetan exile community in India, which numbers around 100,000. The Administration runs schools, health services, cultural activities and economic development projects for the Tibetan community. It also provides welfare services for the hundreds of Tibetans who continue to arrive in India each month as refugees after having crossed from China, usually via Nepal, on foot. The government of India allows the CTA to exercise effective jurisdiction in these matters over the Tibetan communities in northern India. According to Tashi Wangdi, Representative to the Americas of the Dalai Lama, "A parliament was elected by Tibetans in exile. [The Dalai Lama] then brought about gradual changes for the democratization of the system. The political leadership is now elected. We have had a parliament in existence since 1961 and seven years ago we elected a Prime Minister. His Holiness describes himself as semi-retired."

The CTA is not recognized as a government by any country, but it receives financial aid from governments and international organisations for its welfare work among the Tibetan exile community in India. This does not imply recognition of the CTA as a government.

In 2001 the worldwide Tibetan exile community conducted a democratic election for the position of Prime Minister (officially Kalon Tripa; Tibetan: བཀའ་བློན་ཁྲི་པའ་). The election was won by Lobsang Tenzin, a 62-year-old Buddhist monk and scholar who is usually known by the titles Professor Venerable Samdhong Rinpoche. 6.php" target="_blank">http://www.snowlionpub.com/pages/N56_6.php. This was the first democratic election in the history of the Tibetan people.

Indian police barred several hundred Tibetan exiles from starting a march to Tibet on March 10 2008 to protest the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, as Tibetans marked their uprising against Chinese rule in _1959.