Nobel Peace Prize
Two activists from two rival countries... India and Pakistan share the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. India's Kailash Satyarthi and Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai were named the joint winners of the eight-million kronor (USD 1.1 million) prize by the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee - Norway's former prime minister Thorbjoern Jagland.
Kailash Satyarthi
He belongs to Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. He was an electrical engineer who turned into an activist for children's rights at the age of 26. He gave up his job as an electrical engineer to dedicate himself to protecting and advancing child rights for over three decades now, freeing 80,000 child labourers and giving them new hope in life.
In 1983, he founded the Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) to fight child labour. His efforts have helped rescue thousands of children from bondage, trafficking and exploitative labour.
It is largely due to his doggedness and zeal that NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan has emerged as by far the most prominent child rights group in the country even as 60-year-old Satyarthi rose to become a global voice for the children's cause.
Several prestigious awards have been conferred on him, including Defenders of Democracy Award (2009-US), Medal of the Italian Senate (2007-Italy), Robert F Kennedy International Human Rights Award (USA) and Fredric Ebert International Human Rights Award (Germany) etc. He created the Global March against Child Labour, a movement that is active in many countries.
Malala Yousufzai
The 17-year-old Pakistani girl child education campaigner was shot nearly-fatally in 2012 by a Taliban gunman. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman two years ago when she was on her way to school in a bus. A critically injured Malala was airlifted, at the Pakistan government expense, to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, where she was treated for life-threatening injuries and pulled back from the brink.
Malala is the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Prize. Before Malala, Australia-born British citizen William Lawrence Bragg was the youngest Nobel laureate when he won the physics Nobel in 1915 at the age of 25.
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