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Malala becomes youngest Nobel laureate
INP
OSLO, Norway - Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenage education campaigner shot on school bus in 2012 by a Taliban gunman, has won the 2014 Nobel peace prize.
Malala won along with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian children’s rights activist. The two were named winner of the £690,000 ($1.11 million) prize by chairman of the Nobel committee - Norway’s former prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland - on Friday morning. Malala, now 17, was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman two years ago in Pakistan after coming to prominence for her campaigning for education for girls. She won for what the Nobel committee called her “heroic struggle” for girls’ right to education. She is the youngest ever winner of the prize.
She has since continued to campaign for girls’ education, speaking before the United Nations, meeting Barack Obama, being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and last year publishing the memoir “I am Malala.” In a statement, the Nobel committee said: “Despite her youth, Malala Yousafzai has already fought for several years for the right of girls to education, and has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations. “This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education,” the committee added.
About Satyarthi, the Nobel committee said that he maintained the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and headed various forms of peaceful protests. “Showing great personal courage, Kailash Satyarthi, 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 committee said. “He has also contributed to the development of important international conventions on children’s rights,” the committee added. The Nobel committee said it “regards it as an important point for a Muslim and a Hindu, a Pakistani and an Indian, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism.”
Satyarthi, 60, dedicated his prize to children in slavery. “It’s an honour to all those children who are still suffering in slavery, bonded labour and trafficking,” he said. Yemeni Nobel peace laureate Tawakkol Karman said that Malala and Satyarthi were worthy winners and that Satyarthi had taken part in an “outstanding and long struggle for the rights of the children.” There were a record 278 nominations this year, 19 more than ever before - including US whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Pope Francis. Also on the list of nominees was an anti-war clause in the Japanese constitution and the International Space Station Partnership.
Previous choices include illustrious names such as Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Martin Luther King - and, controversially, Barack Obama in 2009. On Thursday, the Nobel committee stunned the literary world by choosing little-known French author Patrick Modiano for the prize.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk