The Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Prizes were established through the 1895 will of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel (the inventor of dynamite). Regretting the destructive military misuses of his inventions, Nobel dedicated his vast fortune to honour individuals who confer the “greatest benefit on mankind” across Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

While the scientific and literary prizes are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, the Nobel Peace Prize is uniquely awarded in Oslo, Norway, honoring efforts toward international fraternity, disarmament, and human rights defense.

Born in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, in 1954, Kailash Satyarthi gave up a lucrative career as an electrical engineer to confront the scourge of child bonded labor in India:

• Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement): Founded in 1980, this grassroots movement has directly rescued more than 100,000 children from brick kilns, carpet factories, hazardous stone quarries, and domestic servitude.
• Global March Against Child Labour: In 1998, Satyarthi mobilized an 80,000-kilometer march spanning 103 countries, directly leading to the adoption of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 182 banning the worst forms of child labor.
• Nobel Acceptance Call: In his stirring Nobel lecture, Satyarthi proclaimed: “I refuse to accept that all the temples, mosques, churches, and prayer houses have no place for the dreams of our children... Let us democratise knowledge. Let us universalise justice. Let us globalise compassion!”

Born in the Swat Valley of Pakistan in 1997, Malala Yousafzai defied extremist Taliban militants who banned girls from attending schools:

• Courage Under Fire: Under the pen name “Gul Makai”, eleven-year-old Malala wrote diary entries for the BBC Urdu service, detailing her love for books and the terror of school closures.
• The Miraculous Survival: In October 2012, masked gunmen boarded her school bus and shot her in the head. Defying all medical odds, Malala survived, recovered in Birmingham, UK, and emerged with even greater resolve.
• Global Education Champion: At the age of seventeen, Malala became the youngest-ever Nobel Laureate in history. Addressing the United Nations, she declared: “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.”

Biographical prose relies extensively on Relative Pronouns to connect clauses without tedious repetition:

A. Relative Pronouns

• Who / Whom: Used for persons (e.g., “Kailash Satyarthi is an activist who rescued bonded children.”).
• Whose: Indicates possession (e.g., “Children whose rights were violated found a savior in him.”).
• Which / That: Used for objects, concepts, and organizations (e.g., “The organization which he founded is Bachpan Bachao Andolan.”).

B. Defining vs Non-Defining Clauses

Non-defining clauses add extra non-essential information and are set off by commas:

• “Malala Yousafzai, who survived a horrific attack, is a global icon of courage.”