Nobel Peace Prize

Nobel Peace Prize

We all must acknowledge the fact that on the whole the Nobel Awards have been given to good causes, great works though sometimes the omissions are very glaring and upsetting as for example there has been no award for anyone for internet or computer, the two outcomes of science with the greatest impact on human race impacting everyone and everything on earth for the past many years and no peace prize for Gandhi.

There should not be much problem as to whom the award should go regarding internet is concerned or the committee can give it to a list of inventors/inventions which have led to the present state of internet.

I do not want to question the validity of any award or the credibility of any recipient because I admit I am neither qualified enough nor great enough to do that.

But what I would like people to do is to acknowledge whatever good anyone has done especially in terms of the impact their actions have had on at least some sections of the society or environment.

Also let us not resort to blind, emotional and comparative analysis based reactions to any award or recipient out of our common folly of unloving criticism or uncritical love.

If we want to do that then we must take up a detailed study and research with all the relevant information from the scratch to its present evolution which we are questioning.

Mostly in these three categories of Nobel Prize this happens namely literature, economics and peace, the worst being Nobel Peace prizes.

In the other two, it is lack of knowledge or the bias of the committee members that causes the result as was very well brought out, to be precise exposed by Irwing Wallace [one of the reasons he does not find a mention any literary anthology and is branded as a blue collar writer] in his work The Prize  in 1962 concerning the annual prize-giving ceremony of the Nobel Prize. A film, based on the book and starring Paul Newman, was made later in 1963. Six people all around the world are catapulted to international fame as they receive the most important telegraph of their lives, which invites them to Stockholm to receive the prize. This will result to be a turning point in their lives, in which personal affairs and political intrigue will engulf every character and he followed it up with  another book  ‘Writing of One Novel’ in 1968 where he exposed the ignorance of the Nobel Committee about  many great authors.

As for Nobel Peace Awards unlike awards for science [where the works are evaluated on various factors], it is decided by a committee of ten members of Norwegian Parliament. How else do you think Obama could have got it as soon as he became the president of USA.

After all in medicine some people got Nobel Prize for discovering drugs for Blood pressure whereas as early as 7th century B.C a Sanskrit text by Vagbhata describes in detail the properties of  Rauwolfia serpentina and its uses and effects ultimately the basic chemical for control of BP is from this. Incidentally I wrote an half  page article on this in the early 90s in the Indian Express science supplement.