With technology providing easy access to opportunities to the remotest parts of the world, affordable and quality education continues to top the list of the most urgent requirements for a developing society. And higher the altitude, higher the time taken to make progress. Upholding the legacy of the Indian scholar-saint Naropa, his followers have contrived to establish a year-long postgraduate fellowship in his name with the aim to address this gap in education facing the youngsters of the region. “We already have the Rancho School (of 3 Idiots fame), which was started to help the underprivileged children of the region. Now, along with that, we have the Naropa Fellowship. Nowadays, not just in Ladakh, but all across India, the problem of unemployment has been on the rise. We don’t want our future children of the Himalayas to face such problems,” says Drukpa Thuksey Rinpoche, the chief spokesperson for the 12th Gyalwang Drukpa, Jigme Pema Wangchen. The residential programme invites prospective applicants from every field and profession, however, preference will be given to candidates from the Himalayan belts of Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh in India, and Nepal and Bhutan internationally. “You might be thinking since the Drukpa is organising it that it will only be for Buddhist people, but we have people from all religions applying for the fellowship. The education imparted here won’t only help students to write or speak better, but it’ll also focus on training them to create peace and preserve the Himalayan culture,” His Eminence Rinpoche says. With the vision to train entrepreneurs and leaders in policy making for the development of the Himalayas, the Naropa Fellowship has already received over 1,700 applications in its maiden year, according to the organisation’s officials. The ambitious project is all set to take off on a sprawling campus in Hemis, heralded by competent faculty from Harvard University, Oxford University, ISB Hyderabad, among others.