{gad}In the protest march organized by the Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, hundreds of monks, both Tibetan exiles and Indian Buddhists, held candles and chanted hymns, which echoed from the Dharamsala hills as they marched through the streets before assembling in the prayer hall of the main Buddhist temple of the town.

Meanwhile, elaborating on its action plan, the 'Core Group for Tibetan Cause', a Non Government Organisation, demanded a more proactive role for the United Nations on the Tibetan issue.

"We appeal to the United Nations that having no active role on the Tibetan question is dangerous for its own integrity. Therefore, the UN should immediately convene a special session on the Tibet problem and send a team to ascertain the truth by investigating allegations and counter-allegations (of the Tibetans and the Chinese government)," said Anand Kumar, national co-convener of the NGO.

China resumed fence-mending talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama, on July 1 in a move that could burnish its international image weeks before the Chinese capital hosts the Olympics.

It is their second closed-door meeting since rioting erupted in Tibet in March and heaped international pressure on China to deal with the Nobel laureate, who fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.