Child rights activists India’s Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai, along with 11 others will receive this year’s Nobel Prizes tomorrow.
The Nobel Laureates take centrestage in Sweden’s capital Stockholm and Norwegian Oslo, where they will receive the Nobel medals, Nobel diplomas and documents confirming the Nobel Prize amount.
Satyarthi, 60, and Yousafzai, 17, will share the $1.1-million Peace Prize at Oslo, while all the other awards will be presented here.
“I want to dedicate this award to the children of India. This award is for them. It is also for the people of India,” an elated Satyarthi told PTI.
He hailed the judiciary for taking up the child rights issue on fast track basis.
The Supreme Court of India recently set up a special ’Social Justice Bench’ to exclusively hear cases concerning social issues, particularly those related to women, children and the underprivileged.
Satyarthi was also optimistic that the Government would do more to protect the rights of children.
“We need more and more MPs to raise this issue in Parliament and laws to abolish child labour in India. I hope the Government will do something pro-active in this regard. Also society should work towards creating a culture of child rights,” he said.
Satyarthi, along with his wife Sumedha, son, daughter-in-law and daughter reached Oslo yesterday.
Frenchman Patrick Modiano will be presented the Literature Nobel, US-British scientist John O’Keefe and Norwegian husband-and-wife duo Edvard and May-Britt Moser Nobel in medicine and Japanese scientists Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano and Japanese-born American Shuji Nakamura the Nobel in Physics.
Americans Eric Betzig and William Moerner and German scientist Stefan Hell will share the Nobel in Chemistry, while Frenchman Jean Tirole will be presented the Nobel for Economics.
Since 1901, the Nobel Prizes have been presented to the Laureates at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.