Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has extended his condolences over the sad demise of India's former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and said the country has lost an "eminent national leader".

"I feel privileged to have known him and am honoured to have counted him as a friend," the Dalai Lama said in a letter he wrote to the poet-politician's foster daughter Namita Bhattacharya yesterday, shortly after the doctors announced that Vajpayee had passed away.
"We met regularly during the course of his career and I continued to visit him at (his) home after he retired. Shri Vajpayee was a truly dedicated politician.