Why in News?

• Union Minister of State for Tourism and Culture met the Kung Fu Nuns of the Drukpa Order.
• The Kung Fu Nuns recently received the Asia Society’s prestigious Game Changer Award in New York for their path-breaking work to empower women and dismantle gender stereotypes in the Himalayas.

The Kung Fu Nuns:

• The Kung Fu Nuns are a strong community of 700 nuns and growing, with a thousand-year-old Drukpa legacy.
• They represent a new generation of Buddhists who use their teachings to take real action and effect meaningful change in the world by promoting gender equality and environmentalism.
• The Nuns use Jigme as their first name and the meaning of Jigme is ‘fearless’.
• With this recognition, the Kung Fu Nuns join the likes of iconic Indian leaders Indra Nooyi, Mukesh Ambani, and Dev Patel, who have also been honored by the Asia Society.

Drukpa Order:

• The Kung Fu Nuns are the fearless daughters of India who represent a new generation of Buddhists using spirituality to inspire real-life action & impact.
• Harnessing the ancient martial art to build strength, promote equality, and improve communities, they are inspiring young girls to break stereotypes and be their own heroes.
• They belong to the Drukpa Lineage, a thousand-year-old Buddhist tradition that began in the Himalayas.
• The Gyalwang Drukpa, the spiritual leader and founder of the Drukpa order, encouraged his nuns to train in Kung Fu to build confidence as leaders.
• In doing so, he flouted centuries of Buddhist tradition that barred nuns from physical exercise.
• They are the only Buddhist nuns in the world to practice Kung Fu. The nuns use their martial arts expertise to challenge gender roles in India’s conservative culture.

Asia Society Game Changer Awards:

• Founded in 1956, the Asia Society is a nonpartisan, non-profit educational institution.
• It holds offices in Hong Kong, Houston, Los Angeles, Manila, Melbourne, Mumbai, NYC, San Francisco, Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Washington DC and Zurich.
• The society is dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships among people, leaders and institutions of Asia and the United States in a global context.
• Each year, the Asia Society honor individuals, organizations, or movements that have inspired, enlightened, and shown true leadership in areas that reflect Asia Society’s core pillars of policy and business, arts and culture, and education.