Kailash Satyarthi, 60-year-old child rights activist from Madhya Pradesh, and Malala Yousafzai, who has risked her life to wage a campaign for girls’ education in Pakistan, are the joint winners of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
“It is an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on Friday. They were chosen for the prize for “their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
The Committee said Mr. Satyarthi, based in New Delhi, showed “great personal courage” and “maintaining Gandhi’s tradition, has headed various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain.”
The peace prize winner has saved thousands of children from bonded labour in factories through the Bachpan Bachao Andolan which he founded in 1980, and other organisations. On Malala Yousafzai, the Committee said, “Despite her youth, [she] has already fought for several years for the rights of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations.” Malala became a global symbol of the fight against extremism after she was shot by Taliban militants two years ago in Swat.
Past Indian Nobel winners
Year | Name | Field |
1913 | Rabindranath Tagore | Literature |
1930 | C.V. Raman | Physics |
1968 | Hargobind Khorana | Medicine |
1979 | Mother Teresa | Peace |
1983 | Subrahmanyam Chandrasekhar | Physics |
1998 | Amartya Sen | Economics |
2009 | Venkatraman Ramakrishnan | Chemistry |
2014 | Kailash Satyarthi | Peace |
Corrections and Clarifications:
This article has been edited for a factual error.
