India's Nobel connections

Winner	Year	Area	Work
Rabindranath Tagore	1913	Literature	Gitanjali, a collection of poems, described as “profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse”
Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman	1930	Physics	Discovery of “inelastic scattering of light”, named Raman effect after him
Hargobind Khorana	1968	Medicine	Interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis. He shared the prize with Robert W Holley and Marshall Warren Nirenberg
Mother Teresa	1979	Peace	The Albanian-born nun, who made India her home, won the prize for "work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitutes a threat to peace".
Subramanian Chandrasekhar	1983	Physics	Theoretical structure and evolution of stars. He shared the prize with William Alfred Fowler
Amartya Sen	1998	Economics	Welfare economics
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan	2009	Chemistry	Mapping ribosomes, the protein-producing factories within cells, at the atomic level. He shares the prize with Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath.

 

 

India’s other Nobel connections

1. In 2007, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change headed by India’s R K Pachauri shared the Nobel prize in peace with Al Gore. 

 

2. V S Naipaul, Trinidad-born British writer of Indian origin, won the Nobel prize in literature in 2001. 

 

3. Abdus Salam, born in undivided Punjab and a citizen of Pakistan, shared the Nobel prize in physics in 1979 with Steven Weinberg for his work on electroweak unification, one of the important puzzles of 

        modern theoretical physics. 

 

4. British author Rudyard Kipling, born in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1865, won the Nobel prize in literature in 1907. 

 

5. Ronald Ross, born in Almora, Uttarakhand, in 1857 was awarded the Nobel prize in medicine in 1902 for his work on malaria. He was a British citizen.

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Nobel Prizes honor a record 5 women in 2009

A record five women were among the 13 people awarded Nobel Prizes on Thursday.

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf presented the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics at an elegant ceremony at Stockholm concert hall. Hours earlier, President Barack Obama received the peace prize in Oslo.

Only 40 women have won the prestigious awards, including Marie Curie who was given the 1903 physics prize and the chemistry prize eight years later. In all, 802 individuals and 20 organizations have received Nobel Prizes over the years.

1- Romanian-born author Herta Mueller accepted the Nobel literature award for her critical depiction of life behind the Iron Curtain — work drawn largely from her personal experiences.


2-  Elinor Ostrom, 76, made history by being the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, sharing it with fellow American Oliver Williamson for their work in economic governance.


3-Americans Elizabeth H. Blackburn, 61, and Carol W. Greider, 48, shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with countryman Jack W. Szostak for their work in solving the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.



4- The chemistry award was shared by 70-year-old Ada Yonath of Israel and Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz for their atom-by-atom description of ribosomes, the protein-making machinery within cells.



5- American George E. Smith shared the physics award with countryman Willard S. Boyle for inventing a sensor used in digital cameras. Also taking the prize was Charles K. Kao, also from the U.S., for discovering how to transmit light signals long distances through hair-thin glass fibers

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Nobel laureates of India

Indian Nobel Prize Winners
	RABINDRANATH TAGORE (1913) Nobel Prize for Literature Popularly known as Gurudev, India's most famous writer and poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his work Geetanjali, a collection of poems, in 1913. Tagore was also involved in teaching. In 1901 he founded the famous Santiniketan which later came to be known as Vishwabharati University. DID YOU KNOW? Rabindranath Tagore is also the author of India's National Anthem.

CHANDRASHEKAR VENKATA RAMAN (1930) Nobel Prize for Physics Born at Thiruvanaikkaval in Tamil Nadu, Raman studied at Presidency College, Madras. Later, he served as Professor of Physics at Calcutta University. C.V. Raman won the Nobel Prize for an important research in the field of optics (light). Raman had found that diffused light contained rays of other wavelengths-what is now popularly known as Raman Effect. His theory explains why the frequency of light passing through a transparent medium changes.

	HARGOBIND KHORANA (1968) The Nobel Prize for Medicine Dr. Khorana was born in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan). He went abroad to get his doctorate in Chemistry and later settled there. It was his study of the human genetic code and the role it plays in protein synthesis that got him the Nobel Prize.

MOTHER TERESA (1979) The Nobel Peace Prize Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu at Skopje, now in Yugoslavia. She wanted to become a nun and joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loretto (at Dublin) in 1928. It is as a nun that Agnes came Calcutta in 1929. Here she was extremely touched by the misery of the poor and the sick. She decided to dedicate her life to serving them. She then founded a group of similar minded

people called the Missionaries of Charity and set up Nirmal Hriday a center where she took care of the dying, the lepers and other people who had been left alone on the streets of Calcutta to die. Today her group has centers all over the world.
	SUBRAMANIAN CHANDRASHEKAR (1983) The Nobel Prize for Physics Dr S. Chandrashekar, is an Indian-born astrophysicist (a branch of astronomy or the study of space). After studying at the Presidency College in Madras, Dr. Chandrashekhar went to the United States for work and settled there. He has written many books on his field Astrophysics and

Stellar Dynamics. He developed a theory on white dwarf stars forecasts the limit of mass that dwarf stars can have. This limit is known as the Chandrashekar Limit. His theory also explains the final stages of the evolution of stars. DID YOU KNOW? Dr. Chandrashekar is the nephew of another Nobel Prize winner Sir C.V. Raman.
AMARTYA SEN (1998) Nobel Prize for Economics Prof. Amartya Sen is the first Asian to win the Economics Nobel. He is one of the most respected economics thinker in the world. He is also an excellent teacher. He won the Nobel for his work in the area of economic theory. Some of his most important work is in the areas of poverty, democracy, development and social welfare.

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Hosted by Google Back to Google News Obama defends war at Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

OSLO — US President Barack Obama on Thursday accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, uncomfortably acknowledging his role as a leader at war while insisting that conflict can be morally justified.

Obama's elevation to a pantheon of winners alongside the likes of Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King before he has even spent a year in office has sparked international debate.

Obama said he received the award with "great humility". "Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight".

The US president, who like other winners will get a diploma, a medal and 10 million krona (1.4 million dollars), dwelled at length on his responsibility fighting conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he has just sent 30,000 extra troops.

"War is sometimes necessary, and war is at some level an expression of human feelings."
The United States "has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms," he said highlighting conflict in Europe and Asia.

"The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans."

"Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice," Obama told the glittering event at Oslo City Hall, warning that diplomacy must be backed by "consequences" to beat repression.

"I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed," he said.
"And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict -- filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other."

Warning that was is "never glorious, and we must never trumpet it as such," Obama argued that it could "sometimes be not only necessary but morally justified," saying negotiations would not end the Al-Qaeda threat.
The US leader paid tribute to anti-government demonstrators in Iran, Myanamar and Zimbabwe and said the United States would always stand on the side of those who sought freedom.



The Nobel committee praised Obama for nurturing a new era of engagement and multilateralism in US foreign policy when it made its shock announcement in October.


Disappointment in Norway was mirrored in the United States, where the US leader's once huge popularity has started to fray and isolationist sentiment is on the rise.

Several Norwegian peace and anti-nuclear organisations held demonstrations outside the award ceremony. Outside the Nobel committee offices, protestors held up a banner reading "Obama you won the prize, now earn it."

An InFact institute poll published Wednesday in the Verdens Gang daily showed just 35.9 percent of Norwegians thought Obama deserved the prize and 33.5 percent said he was unworthy.

The medicine, physics, chemistry, economics and literature Nobel laureates will receive their awards at a ceremony in Stockholm on Thursday.

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2009 Nobel Prizes and The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel

The Nobel Prize

The foundations of the Nobel Prize were laid in 1895 when Alfred Nobel wrote his last will, leaving much of his wealth for its establishment. Since 1901, the prize has honored men and women for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, for work in peace and now economics. Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. The committee has taken a wide interpretation of Nobel's guidelines, expanding the prize beyond peace mediation to include efforts to combat poverty, disease and climate change.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said US President Barack Obama won the award for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples and for his work on nuclear non-proliferation.

US President Barack Obama said he was surprised and humbled by being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and said he doubted he deserved to be honored alongside luminaries who had won the award. Obama's reaction.

Physiology or Medicine

US trio Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol W Greider and Jack W Szostak won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday for discovering an enzyme which helps chromosomes in cells stay eternally young, the Nobel jury said.

Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak won the 2009 Nobel prize for medicine or physiology on Monday for their work on chromosomes. Here are some details about the winners:

Literature

Herta Mueller, a Romanian-born writer who produced tales of the disenfranchised and fought for free speech, has won the 2009 Nobel prize for literature. She made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories.

The judges, apparently, could not help themselves. Just two days after a Nobel Prize official worried the literature committee was too "Eurocentric," the winner for 2009 was Herta Mueller, a Romanian-born writer once censored in her native country.

Physics

Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for physics for work in fibre-optics and in semiconductors, the prize committee said on Tuesday.

Chemistry

Indian-American Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, 57, has won this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry, the Nobel Foundation announced on Wednesday. He shares it with Thomas Steitz, an American, and Ada Yonath, an Israeli, reports Anika Gupta.

A delighted Nobel laureate Venkatraman Ramakrishnan said that he was deeply indebted to his associates, students and researchers in his Cambridge-based laboratory for the path-breaking work he has conducted in the area of ribosomes.

Economic Sciences

                                       Ostrom, the first woman to win

Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson of the United States won the 2009 Nobel Economics Prize for their work on the organisation of cooperation in economic governance, the Nobel jury announced today. Ostrom is the first woman to win the Economics Prize, which has been awarded since 1969.

Elinor Ostrom, the first woman to win the Nobel Economics Prize since it was first awarded 40 years ago, said she was humbled and surprised at the honour on Monday.

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