Tashi and Nungshi Malik


Tashi and Nungshi Malik are the first siblings and twins to climb the Seven Summits and reach the North and South Poles and complete the Adventurers Grand Slam and Three Poles Challenge. They have won several awards including the Nari Shakti Puraskar in 2020. This is the highest award for women in India and 15 women shared 12 awards that year.

Early life

The Malik twins originally hail from Haryana state, India. They were born to an Indian Army officer, Col Virendra Singh Malik, of Anwali village in Sonepat District of Haryana and his wife Anjoo Thapa of Uttarakhand. The Malik family is settled in Dehradun after Col Malik's retirement from the Indian army.
The girls attended several schools in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Manipur, including Lawrence School, Lovedale, near Ootacamund. In 2013 they completed graduation in Journalism and Mass communication from Sikkim Manipal University. They have a Certificate in Peace and Conflict Resolution from School of International Training in Vermont, USA. In 2015 the twin sisters graduated in Sport and Exercise from Southern Institute of Technology, Invercargill, New Zealand.

Mountaineering

The Malik sisters trained at the Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in 2010. On Sunday, 19 May 2013, they scaled Mount Everest, becoming the first twin sisters to do so. They were joined at the summit by Samina Baig and they placed the flags of India and Pakistan together to symbolise peace.
The twins participated in 'Climbathon 2013' where they scaled a virgin peak at 21000 ft funded by Indian Mountaineering Foundation in Aug 2013. They are also the first female twins to complete Seven Summits, complete the Explorers Grand Slam and the youngest people to complete the Three Pole Challenge. On 16 December 2014, after climbing Mt Vinson in Antarctica, they became world's first twins and siblings to scale the 'Seven Summits' together.
, Alaska
After scaling Mt Everest on 19 May 2013 they completed the Explorers Grand Slam on 15 July 2015 in just over two years. They are the first Indian and South Asians to complete the Explorers Grand Slam.
In September 2019, Nungshi and Tashi selected and led team India 'Khukuri Warriors' in the World's Toughest Race 'Eco Challenge Fiji' that pitched 66 teams of top adventure athletes from 30 nations against forces of nature and against each other traversing 671 km of rugged Fijian landscape, ocean, rivers, lakes and jungles using dozen adventure activities. They became the first and only South Asians to participate in this global adventure race. #https://www.thewrap.com/eco-challenge-reboot-teams-amazon-mark-burnett-bear-grylls-worlds-toughest-race-fiji/ https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/bear-grylls-set-to-bring-worlds-toughest-race-to-ott-world/1877333

Seven Summits climbing details

No.ImagepeakElevationMountain RangeContinentDate of Summit
1Mount EverestHimalayaAsiaMay 19, 2013
2AconcaguaAndesSouth AmericaJanuary 29, 2014
3DenaliAlaska RangeNorth AmericaJune 4, 2014
4Kilimanjaro-AfricaJuly 15, 2015
5Mount ElbrusCaucasus MountainsEuropeAugust 22, 2013
6Mount VinsonSentinel RangeAntarcticaDecember 14, 2014
7Puncak JayaSudirman RangeAustraliaMarch 19, 2014

North pole and South pole

NoImagePoleYear
1North PoleApril 21, 2015
2South PoleDecember 28, 2014

Honours and awards