Dharamshala: A new documentary about the life of blind Tibetan musician Acho Namgyal received its world premiere on February 20 at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, Dharamsala, India. Director Sonam Tashi spent two years filming in the US, Switzerland and India to tell the story Acho Namgyal and the roots of the Nangma and Toeshey genres of Tibetan classical music.

Sources report that access to the Internet Movie Database, IMDb.com, was blocked in China this week, adding the online movie business portal to a fast-growing list of banned web sites that feature user-generated content, including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

No aspect of Tibetan Buddhism is as well-known, or seems quite as mythological to outsiders, as the faith's apparently literalistic belief in reincarnation. Taken as a whole, Buddhism is such a diverse and wide-ranging religion that it very nearly lacks any central doctrines or dogmas. Many Buddhists could be called nontheistic or even atheistic, and the widespread Buddhist belief in reincarnation takes many different forms. To some Zen Buddhists, for example, reincarnation is primarily a metaphor or a folkloric remnant.

Dharamshala: The wife of Tibetan film-maker Dhondup Wangchen, who was arrested by the Chinese authorities in March 2008, has told the Tibet Post her husband didn't commit any crime but is afraid he will be convicted anyway.