Japanese Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of Hibakusha- the atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo, Norway.
- The award recognised their efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
- Prize Amount: 11 million Swedish Kronor.
Note: The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded on the day of Alfred Nobel’s death, the 10th of December, a time-honoured tradition since 1901.
Medal of Nobel Peace Prize:
i.The medal was designed by Swedish Sculptor and engraver Erik Lindberg.
ii.The front of the medal shows a portrait in relief of Alfred Nobel and the reverse shows 3 naked men embracing – a symbol of the international fraternization that Nobel wished to contribute to through the Peace Prize.
iii.The Latin inscription on the medal “Pro pace et fraternitate gentium” means peace and fraternity among peoples.
About Nihon Hidankyo:
Tokyo, Japan-based Nihon Hidankyo was founded in 1956. The motto of the organisation is “No more Hibakusha”.
Objective:
- To promote the social and economic rights of all Hibakusha, including those living outside Japan.
- To ensure that no one ever again is subjected to the catastrophe that befell the Hibakusha.
Efforts:
i.Nihon Hidankyo has provided thousands of witness accounts, issued resolutions and public appeals, and sent annual delegations to the United Nations and various peace conferences to remind the world of the pressing need for nuclear disarmament.
ii.The organisation carried out extensive educational work on the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
iii.The efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha contributed to the establishment of the nuclear taboo.
Facts on Nobel Peace Prize:
i.The 105 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded from 1901 to 2024. The award was not awarded on 19 occasions – 1914-1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939-1943, 1948, 1955-1956, 1966-1967 and 1972.
ii.71 peace prizes have been given to one laureate only. 31 peace prizes were shared by 2 laureates and 3 prizes were shared between 3 laureates.
iii.The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to 142 laureates – 111 individuals and 31 organisations.
- Comité International de la Croix Rouge (International Committee of the Red Cross) was awarded 3 times and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was awarded 2 times.
- Therefore there are 111 individuals and 28 organisations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
iv.Of the 111 individuals awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 19 are women.
Points to note:
i.Youngest Laureate– Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907 at the age of 17 “in consideration of the power of observation, originality of imagination, virility of ideas and remarkable talent for narration which characterize the creations of this world-famous author”.
ii.Oldest Laureate– Joseph Rotblat received the prize in 1995 at the age of 87, for “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”.
iii.First Woman: Bertha von Suttner won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905. She was the first woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
iv.Most :Geneva(Switzerland) based the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has received the Nobel Peace Prize three times in 1917, 1944, and 1963.
iv.2023 Laureates: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2023 was awarded to the imprisoned Iranian human rights advocate Narges Mohammadi for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.
Indian Laureates:
i.Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity.
- She was a Roman Catholic nun and the founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity. She was born in 1910 in Uskup, Ottoman Empire(now Macedonia) and later became an Indian citizen in 1951.
ii.Kailash Satyarthi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 jointly with Malala Yousafzai for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.
- Kailash Satyarthi was the first natural-born Indian to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
About the Nobel Prize:
i.The Nobel Prize is an international award administered by the Nobel Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden, that recognises discoveries and achievements that benefit humanity.
ii.The award is based on the fortune of Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor and entrepreneur.
iii.Since 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace.
- Sveriges Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) established the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1968.
Prize Money: Winners of the Nobel Prize will receive a medal, a personal diploma, and a cash award.
- The cash award of Nobel Prize 2024 is set at Swedish kronor (SEK) 11 million per full Nobel Prize.
Click here for Key facts about the Nobel Prize
