UPDATE 2-Dalai Lama to visit disputed Indian state on Nov.8

(Updates with protest from Dharamsala in paragraphs 7-10)

By Abhishek Madhukar

DHARAMSALA, India, Oct 22 (Reuters) - The Dalai Lama,
Tibet's exiled leader, will make a week-long visit to an Indian
state bordering China, his aide said on Thursday, a trip that
is bound to upset Beijing, which claims part of the territory
as its own.

The Dalai Lama is expected to give spiritual lessons
beginning on Nov. 8 to his followers in Tawang in Arunachal
Pradesh state, which is at the centre of a border dispute
between two countries who have been trying to reduce tensions
recently.

"His Holiness will be flying directly from Guwahati to
Tawang on the 8th (Nov)," Tenzin Taklha told Reuters. Guwahati
is a major city in India's northeast.

The intended visit has already sparked consternation in
China, which claims about 90,000 sq km (35,000 square miles) of
Arunachal Pradesh along the border as part of its territory.

With India and China engaged in a race for regional
supremacy, Beijing could see the Dalai Lama's trip as
encouraging the Tibetan struggle by undermining Chinese
territorial integrity.

(Click on [ID:nDEL465372] for a factbox on India-China
border disputes)

About 500 Tibetans, mostly monks and nuns, marched with
candles through Dharamsala, where the Tibetan
government-in-exile is based, to denounce what they said were
executions of four Tibetans in Lhasa for anti-Chinese protests
last year.

"There was an inconspicuous deployment of Public Security
Bureau and armed personnel around Lhasa on the day of the
execution (October 20)," the government in-exile said in a
statement.

"The Chinese authorities had also stepped up patrols... and
heads of some families were also taken into custody."

Repeated calls to get a confirmation of the executions from
government offices in the Tibetan capital Lhasa went
unanswered.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising
against Chinese rule. He has since lived in Dharamsala, a hill
town in northern Indian.

The Dalai Lama's trip was announced days before the prime
ministers of India and China are to meet in Thailand to defuse
mounting rhetoric over their border dispute.

India and China fought a short border war in 1962 and,
despite burgeoning trade in recent years, mistrust remains.
(Writing by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by Bappa Majumdar and
Ron Popeski)