Nobody can argue against the great work done by the two Nobel Peace prize winners, their courage and individual sacrifice is beyond question, but for me there are more deserving people.
A prize in science seems less controversial but a peace prize seems to have a political message attached other than peace. Awarding one to a Pakistani and an Indian looks just that. I follow India news closely and had never heard of Kailash Satyarthi. So I decided to investigate a little. The person who nominated Satyarthi and his close friend, is a certain US senator Tom Harkin, graduate from a pontifical university in America, (stated aim to spread Christs Gospel). Also Satyarthi co-authored a book with Bupinder Zutshi of JNU in 2006 "Globalisation Development and Child Rights" which showed India in a questionable light. Zutshi worked with USAID which in turn supported the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) for education in India. Worldvison another christian charity, of US origin has also worked with him. His daughter Asmita was a one time intern under Hillary Clinton, no doubt this helped his US support base for nomination. The other winner Malala Yousafzai now a defato British citizen is part of a covert US campaign mentioned in the conclusion of the 9/11 commission report, "to promote hope for families and children" in terror afflicted regions of the world is more straight forward to understand. For me a Nobel Peace Prize for Mahatma Gandhi, would be on a list ahead of Mother Teresa or Satyarthi. It appears that the Vatican, through its US sponsors has more say in the Nobel Peace prize awards than Indians who had never heard of him till now.
Jayesh A Patel
West Wimbledon
London SW20
