In this month’s show:

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Aung San Suu Kyi: The Burmese democ­racy activist is released from house arrest.

Election Without a State: The results of the pri­maries for the Tibetan government-​​in-​​exile are in. This emerg­ing democ­racy man­aged to coör­di­nate a global elec­tion on a sin­gle day. Add to that riot police seiz­ing bal­lot boxes, and for­eign gov­ern­ments refus­ing to release results, and you get a uniquely Tibetan polit­i­cal expe­ri­ence. We hear from Dharamsala polit­i­cal watcher, Tenzin Tsundue about what it all means for the Tibetan cause.

Just Say It: The first of our new Creative Response series, show­cas­ing how Tibetans are express­ing their hopes and frus­tra­tions through the arts. We visit a café in Dharamsala, India, where exiles have gath­ered for an evening of music, poetry and humor and to cel­e­brate their mother tongue. They came to sup­port the stu­dents in Tibet who, in October, protested planned edu­ca­tion poli­cies that almost elim­i­nate the use of Tibetan in schools in favor of Chinese.

The First Time: This month in our Open Mind series, pro­ducer Peter Aronson hears from first-​​time med­i­ta­tors at a Buddhist cen­ter in the Himalayan forests about the chal­lenges, the sur­prises and the waf­fles. Yes, the waffles.