Sir — While the decision to award child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi the Nobel Peace prize is welcome, the criteria for the award have, in the past, been suspect.
US President Barack Obama was conferred the prize in his first year of presidency without having made any significant contribution to world peace, while Mahatma Gandhi, globally recognised as the ‘apostle of peace’, never got the Nobel.
An unsung hero, Mr Satyarthi launched the Bachpan Bachao Andolan in 1980. He has liberated more than 80,000 children from labour. Ms Malala Yousafzai acquired global fame in 2012 after she survived a Talibani bullet for promoting education among girls in Pakistan.
But the Nobel committee’s misplaced significance on the awardees being a Hindu and a Muslim, and belonging to India and Pakistan respectively, has created an impression that the shared prize was a balancing act and an instrument of promoting peace between India and Pakistan when tensions are high between the two countries.