Voice of children, Satyarthi and Malala, awarded Nobel Peace prize

Oslo Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai mdash IndoPak lsquochampions of peacersquo mdash yesterday received the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014 for their pioneering work on promoting child rights in the troubled subcontinent as they made an impassioned plea to globalise compassionNobel Peace Prize laureates Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai arrive for the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony at the City Hall in Oslo Norway PicsAFPldquoSatyarthi and Yousafzai are precisely the people whom Alfred Nobel in his will calls lsquochampions of peacersquordquo Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjorn Jagland said in his speech before awarding them the prestigious prize hereldquoA young girl and a somewhat older man one from Pakistan and one from India one Muslim the other Hindu both symbols of what the world needs more unity Fraternity between the nationsrdquo he addedSatyarthi said ldquoI refuse to accept that the world is so poor when just one week of global military expenditure is enough to bring all of our children into classroomsrdquoldquoI refuse to accept that the shackles of slavery can ever be stronger than the quest for freedomrdquo said 60yearoldSatyarthi asked the audience to feel the child inside them and globalise compassionThe audience included King Harald V of Norway and Pakistanrsquos former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ldquoLet us inculcate and transform the individualsrsquo compassion into a global movement Let us globalise compassion Not passive compassion but transformative compassion that leads to justice equality and freedomrdquo Satyarthi said after receiving the award at the Oslo City HallInvoking Mahatma Gandhi he said ldquoIf we are to teach real peace in this world we shall have to begin with the childrenrdquo lsquoI humbly add let us unite the world through the compassion for our childrenrsquoldquoI represent here the sound of silence The cry of innocence And the face of invisibility I have come here to share thevoices and dreams of our children our children because they are all our childrenrdquo he said adding that the crime against children has no place in a civilised societyYoungest awardee Malala who was nominated in the Peace Prize category last year also became the youngest ever Nobel laureateIn her speech she said ldquoI am honoured to receive this award together with Kailash Satyarthi who has been a champion of childrenrsquos rights for a long time Twice as long in fact than I have been alive I am also glad that we can stand together and show the world that an Indian and a Pakistani can be united in peace and together work for childrenrsquos rightsrdquoldquoThis award is not just for me It is for those forgotten children who want education It is for those frightened children who want peace It is for those voiceless children who want changerdquo she said in her acceptance speechldquoI am here to stand up for their rights raise their voiceit is not time to pity them It is time to take action so it becomes the last time that we see a child deprived of educationrdquo she saidRecalling her speech at the UN she said ldquoOne child one teacher one pen and one book can change the worldrdquoShe dedicated the Nobel Prize money to the Malala Fund to help give girls everywhere a quality educationldquoThe first place this funding will go is where my heart is to build schools in Pakistan especially in my home of Swat and Shanglardquo she saidShe said Martin Luther King Nelson Mandela Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi once stood on the same stage and hoped the steps that Satyarthi and she has taken so far will also bring change mdash lasting changeldquoIt is not time to tell the leaders to realise how important education is mdash they already know it mdash their own children are in good schools Now it is time to call them to take action We ask the world leaders to unite and make education their top priorityrdquoshe addedNo place for violenceChairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Jagland said that violence and repression cannot be justified in any religion ldquoIslam Christianity Judaism Hinduism and Buddhism protect life and cannot be used to take livesrdquo he saidEchoing his views Satyarthi said ldquoAll the great religions tell us to care for children Jesus said lsquoLet the children come to me do not hinder them for the kingdom of God belongs to themrsquo The Holy Quran says lsquoKill not your children because of povertyrsquoldquoI refuse to accept that all the temples and mosques and churches and prayer houses have no place for the dreams of our childrenrdquo he saidldquoI challenge the passivity and pessimism surrounding our children I challenge this culture of silence this culture of neutralityrdquo he said and called upon all the governments intergovernmental agencies businesses faith leaders the civil society and everyone to put an end to all forms of violence against childrenldquoToday I see thousands of Mahatma Gandhis Martin Luther Kings and Nelson Mandelas marching forward and calling on us The boys and girls have joined I have joined in We ask you to join toordquo he addedMusical ceremonygtgt The ceremony began with an Opera performance by Norwegian classical pianist Edward Grieg and singer Hans Christian AndersengtgtIt was followed by Pakistani singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khanrsquos performance on his uncle Nusrat Fateh Alirsquos famous Sufi composition lsquoAllahu Allahursquo with his troupegtgtAmjad Ali Amaan and Ayaan took to the stage post the felicitation of Malala and Satyarthi to perform their lsquoRaga For PeacersquoTales of courage Satyarthi 60 who gave up his job as an electrical engineer to run an NGO for rescuing children from forced labour and trafficking and 17yearold Malala who survived a nearfatal Taliban attack two years ago with determination advocating education for girls were named by the Nobel Peace Prize Committee for the prestigious award on October 10 They will share the prize money of USD 11 millionNobel Medal unravelledgtgt The Nobel medal is 18carat green gold plated with 24carat gold and weighs around 175 gramsgtgtIt is protected against scratches and undergoes a meticulous process to take its final shapegtgtThe medals for Physics Chemistry Physiology or Medicine and Literature were modelled by Swedish sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg while the Peace medal was designed by Norwegian sculptor Gustav VigelandgtgtThe face of the medal of the Norwegian Nobel Committee shows Alfred Nobel in a pose slightly different from that of the other medalsgtgtThe inscription in Latin reads ldquoPro pace et fraternitate gentiumrdquo which means ldquoFor the peace and brotherhood of menrdquo gtgtThe other side of the Nobel Peace Prize medal represents a group of three men forming a fraternal bondgtgtThe Nobel medals were cast by the Royal Mint of Myntverket in Eskilstuna Sweden from 1902 to 2010gtgtIn 2011 the medals were cast by Det Norske Myntverket Mint of Norway in Kongsberg NorwaygtgtThereafter the medals were made by Svenska Medalj in Eskilstuna in SwedenWhy is Nobel Peace Prize given in OsloSince 1901 when Nobel Prizes were first given Peace Prize has been awarded by a committee of five appointed by the Norwegian Parliament Storting in accordance with Alfred Nobelrsquos will Alfred Nobel never disclosed why he didnrsquot give the task of awarding the Peace Prize to a Swedish body The reasons are speculativeOne argument is that Nobel admired Norwegian patriot Bjornstjerne Bjornson while another is that Storting was the first national legislature to vote in support for the international peace movement Nobel may also have favoured distribution of the tasks related to the prize within the SwedishNorwegian union or he may have feared that given the highly political nature of the Peace Prize it might become a tool in power politics thus reducing its significance as an instrument for peaceAssam tea at the ceremonyThere is an Assam connection to this yearrsquos Nobel Prize ceremony with a special tea served at the grand banquet coming from the northeastern state For the first time the Nobel Museum Tea Blend created in honour of the scientist and Nobel creator Alfred Nobel formed a part of the Nobel Banquet The blend is made of Assam and Chinese Keemun tea ldquoIn honour of Alfred Nobel we have composed a special tea blend The blend is based on a Chinese Keemun tea produced in Qimen county situated in Anhui Province Blended together with an Indian Assam tea this tea attains a gorgeous colour and lovely scentrdquo the Nobel Museum said about the unique tea ldquoThe tea is flavoured with the finest bergamot from Italy complemented with the sweetness of Swedish raspberries and the fresh taste of orange A true cosmopolitan blendrdquo it said