India’s Kailash Satyarthi wins Nobel Peace Prize

In a huge development, leading Children’s Rights activist from India, Kailash Satyarthi has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He shared the award with young Malala Yousafzai from Pakistan, who dared to take on Taliban to spread girls’ education. Kailash became the six Indian (origin) to receive the coveted Nobel Prize. He also became the second Indian after Mother Teresa to receive Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Committee regarded it as 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.

Born on January 11, 1954, Kailash has been active in the Indian movement against child labour since the 1990s. His organisation, ‘Bachpan Bachao Andolan’ has helped in the release of over 80,000 children from various forms of servitude and get successful re-integration. He has been involved with the Global March Against Child Labor and its international advocacy body, the International Center on Child Labor and Education (ICCLE). Satyarthi lives in New Delhi, India along with his wife, daughter, son and a daughter in-law.

Malala Yousafzai, born on July 12, 1997, hails from Swat district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Due to her activism for rights to education for girls and women, she was shot at by Taliban on October 9, 2012. She was later airlifted to London and recovered. The assassination attempt sparked a global outrage. She is now living in the UK. Malala became the youngest Nobel laureate ever.

India’s Nobel Prize Winners in the Past:

1913 – Rabindranath Tagore (Literature)

1930 – C. V. Raman (Physics)

1968 – Har Gobind Khorana (Medicine)  [Received US Citizenship]

1979 – Mother Teresa (Peace)

1983 – Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics) [Received US Citizenship]

1998 – Amartya Sen (Economics)

** In 2007, Rajendra Kumar Pachauri received for PEACE on behalf of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC as the Chairman of the institution.