Date: 6/30/2005
From Krishen Kak, Ph.D (Princeton) (formerly of the Indian Administrative Service) C2/2002 Vasant Kunj New Delhi 110070 India To Ole Danbolt MJ¨S Berge Ragnar FURRE Sissel Marie R¨NBECK Inger-Marie YTTERHORN Kaci Kullmann FIVE Geir LUNDESTAD Re. nominations to the Peace Prize 2005 1. On behalf of an agency called "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" group, a number of news items have recently appeared regarding nominations for the Peace Prize. Two such news reports are copied below for the information of the Committee. 2. The Committee will no doubt examine the appropriateness of each of these 1000 names for the Prize, and is surely aware of the proverb that "even one rotten apple can spoil the whole barrel". A few inappropriate names will cast doubts on the entire credibility of the Committee and embroil it in controversy. 3. Amongst the names in the news items are a few to which, as a concerned member of the public, I would especially like to draw the Committee's kind attention. 4. The first is that of Teesta Setalvad. Ms Setalvad, along with her husband, runs a private limited company called "Sabrang Communications" that is widely and popularly believed to receive financial support from the same agencies that finance terrorism in the Indian subcontinent, and there are increasing public demands for an enquiry into its financial affairs. Ms Setalvad is under investigation by the Supreme Court of India - she has been accused by a Muslim victim in the Gujarat violence in 2002 of having paid that victim money to fabricate evidence as well as that she falsely stated to the Supreme Court that she represented that victim. The victim's case that became known as the "Best Bakery" case is now being called the "Best Fakery" case. Whether the Committee should award the Prize to a person who may well be declared a perjuror by the Supreme Court of India - especially as the matter is still pending before the Court - is of course for the Committee to consider. 5. Ms Aruna Roy is on the public record as having lied about foreign financial support to her NGO. In addition (as the second news item indicates), she is closely associated with the political party whose former leader publicly defended the massacre by goons of his party of 3,000 Sikhs in 1984. The perpetrators of that massacre have still to be brought to justice. In addition, the current head of the same political party was accused in the Parliament of India of being responsible for the massacre of Muslims in Bhagalpur in 1989. The accuser is a senior member of the current ministry that runs the government of India. Moreover, as the second news report below indicates, Ms Roy is a member of the NGO that is ascribed credit for "freedom of information" - if this is so, it is the entire NGO that should be prizeworthy, and not a single member. 6. Ms Shabnam Hashmi, like Ms Roy, is on the public record as having lied about foreign financial support to her then NGO called SAHMAT. She was obliged to leave SAHMAT and she started another NGO called ANHAD. The latter solicited money from the public but refused to divulge whether it was a legally registered entity with a properly accounted-for bank account. 7. The Nobel Committee expects its members to keep "a strong commitment to certain common moral and political principles". Surely it should expect the same of nominees for the Prizes? Mss Setalvad, Roy and Hashmi are amoral where financial principles are concerned, and Ms Roy's political principles (if not those of the two others) are certainly duplicitous. 8. Should the Committee wish, I will be happy to provide more details. 9. The Committee is requested to note that "The names of nominees were announced at 20 places across the world. In South Asia there were 13 press conferences, including eight in India where some of the nominees were also present. In Delhi, as many 15 nominees attended the meeting". It does seem that the nominators are trying internationally to generate popular favour for their nomination - and are even introducing prospective winners to the media and the public. 10. It is therefore for the Committee to consider whether, notwithstanding its request that "The nominators are strongly requested not to publish their proposals". the media blitz by the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" group is not an endeavour to influence it. An acknowledgement is requested. Thank you, Krishen Kak ------------------------------- [Two news items from The Hindu, June 30, 2005] 91 Indian women in race for Peace Nobel Special Correspondent The largest number of Nobel Prize nominations, 157, has gone from South Asia Among nominees are Kiran Bedi, Nirmala Deshpande, Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal and Teesta Setalvad NEW DELHI: : Ninety-one women from India figure in the list of 1,000 women who have been nominated globally for the Nobel Peace Prize-2005. The largest number of nominations — 157 — has gone from South Asia, including 29 from Pakistan, 16 from Bangladesh, 12 from Sri Lanka and nine from Nepal. "The number of nominees from India is the highest from any country and the figure shows the immense contribution of women towards peace, justice, human rights and sustainable livelihoods," said Kamla Bhasin, South Asia project coordinator of "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize" group, here on Wednesday while announcing the names of Indian nominees. Some of the nominees are Mahashweta Verma, Kiran Bedi, Sharda and Shanta (both social activists), Shahjahan and Ruth Manorama (women's rights activist), Dilafroz Qazi, Abha Bhayya, Ajit Kaur (writer), Krishna Kumar, Maninder Meenu Sodhi, Veena Mzumdar, Shobha Barve, Shabnam Hashmi, Nandita Haksar, Sheila, Nirmala Deshpande, Anjali Gopalan, Aruna Roy, Capt. Lakshmi Sehgal, Teesta Setalvad, Vandana Shiva, Rashida Bi and Champa Devi Shukla. The names of nominees were announced at 20 places across the world. In South Asia there were 13 press conferences, including eight in India where some of the nominees were also present. In Delhi, as many 15 nominees attended the meeting. The project of nominating women began in 2003 under the conviction that the commitment of women working for peace should be acknowledged and made publicly known. It began as a Swiss initiative, but has become a globally supported project. The Norwegian Nobel Committee is expected to announce the winner on October 14. -------------------- Women pioneers in Nobel prize list Special Correspondent Five sisters-in-arms, who struggled and fought on common issues, nominated from Rajasthan JAIPUR: Five women from Rajasthan, who fought for the deprived and the downtrodden while proving trail blazers in their own chosen areas, find a place in the list of 1000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005. One of them, Chaggi Bai Bhil, is a tribal while another, Ginni Srivastava, who works among tribals of South Rajasthan, is a Canadian by birth. The list, released simultaneously here and elsewhere in the country and other parts of the world on Wednesday, contains the name of Rajasthan's best known social activist and Magsaysay award winner, Aruna Roy. The other two are the human rights activist, Kavita Srivastava and her media shy elder sister, Komal Srivastava, who works in the field of social equality and rationalism. Interestingly, all the five chosen women are sisters-in-arms, joining the struggles and common issues from the time of Deorala sati in the late eighties in Rajasthan. In fact Ms.Roy, Ginni, Kavita and Komal made a formidable team during the past two decades fighting oppression and injustice, never resorting to violence -- both physical and verbal. Both Ginni and Chaggi belong to the same organizations, the Ekal Naari Sangathan and Astha, which the former founded along with her late husband Om Srivastava in Udaipur. Ginni has been the driving force behind the Association of Strong Women Alone (ASWA), a registered society of low income single women. Releasing the names here, the representatives of "Amaan'' and "Vividha'', the activist groups involved in women's struggles said Aruna Roy's pioneering effort in right to information, started as a local intervention against corruption in Central Rajasthan back in 1994. "The freedom of information laws in 10 States and at the Centre is the gift of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, the organization to which Ms.Roy belongs,'' Mamta Jaitley of Vividha observed. The selection committee found the way in which Ms.Roy, a member of the National Advisory Committee of the UPA Government, bridged the interests of the middle class and the impoverished as "remarkable''. Kavita Srivastava, presently the general secretary of Rajasthan People's Union for Civil Liberties, has a two-decade long track record of non-violent struggles to ensure justice to survivors of biases due to gender, class, caste, religion and nationality. Komal Srivastava, who is associated with the Bharatiya Gyan Vigyan Samiti, has been instrumental in convincing the authorities in Rajasthan on the need to have a people-oriented, democratic approach to literacy. .................====================== Since they have never shown any REVULSION in their degradation at the hands of WORTHLESS Italian import (SONIA GANDHI) by BOFORS CHOR (RAJIV GANDHI), none of these INDIAN women deserve any Prize, but a KICK in the back and taught a lesson in peace that is linked to PATRIOTISM. ......................000000000
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