They train with swords and fighting fans after their prayers and morning chants.
Meet the Himalayan kung fu nuns using their martial arts skills to challenge stereotypes about women's roles in the region's patriarchal societies.
"In the Himalayas, girls are never treated equally and girls are not given equal chances - that's why we want to push the girls up," practitioner Jigme Konchok Lhamo, 25, said.
"Kung fu has helped us in taking a stand on gender equality as we feel more confident, we feel strong physically and mentally.
"We are doing kung fu as an example for other girls."
The nuns are from the 800-strong Druk Amitabha Mountain Nunnery in Nepal and belong to the centuries-old Drukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism.
In 2008 as part of his mission to bring about gender equality in Buddhism, spiritual leader Gyalwang Drukpa encouraged them to learn kung fu and take on traditional norms that forbid women and girls from leaving the confines of the nunneries, leading prayers or being fully ordained.
Emboldened by their fighting prowess, the nuns travel across South Asia to teach self-defence classes and promote awareness about human trafficking in a region where violence against women is rarely reported.
They also embark on gruelling mountain walks and cycling campaigns to reach out to remote communities.
Most recently, they completed a three-month, 8,370-kilometre "bicycle journey for peace" from Nepal to the mountains of Ladakh in Kashmir, where they passed through villages and spread their messages of gender equality and empowerment.
Lhamo - who was in New Delhi in early November after picking up an international award in New York for the nunnery's efforts to inspire young girls - became a nun at just 12 despite strong disapproval from her family.
"There was a lot of criticism in the beginning. People didn't really like it because we were breaking rules," Lhamo said, after she and her fellow nuns put on a demonstration of their prowess.
They weilded tasselled swords and open, Chinese-style fighting fans - which are used for signalling commands during combat - emblazoned with dragons and phoenixes.
"But now when we go back to the same places we get a lot of good response.
"They call us to schools. They put the girls in front and the boys at the back. They give girls equal chances to ask questions and talk to us."
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Lukaku (22', 44')
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Indoor cricket in a nutshell
Indoor Cricket World Cup - Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai
16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side
8 There are eight players per team
9 There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.
5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls
4 Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership
Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.
Zones
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B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run
C Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs
D Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full
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Fabio Mello (BRA) beat Mark Alcoba (PHI)
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Ahmed Labban (LEB) v Magomedsultan Magomedsultanov (RUS)
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Abandon
Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay
Translated by Arunava Sinha
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The Word for Woman is Wilderness
Abi Andrews, Serpent’s Tail
Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
Small Victories: The True Story of Faith No More by Adrian Harte
Jawbone Press
Biography
Favourite drink: Must have karak chai and Chinese tea every day
Favourite non-Chinese food: Arabic sweets and Indian puri, small round bread of wheat flour
Favourite Chinese dish: Spicy boiled fish or anything cooked by her mother because of its flavour
Best vacation: Returning home to China
Music interests: Enjoys playing the zheng, a string musical instrument
Enjoys reading: Chinese novels, romantic comedies, reading up on business trends, government policy changes
Favourite book: Chairman Mao Zedong’s poems
