Nobel Prize Winners from Kolkata
The Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prize was established in Alfred Nobel's will in 1895, and it was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. An associated prize, The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was instituted by Sweden's central bank in 1968 and first awarded in 1969.
The Nobel Prizes in the specific disciplines (Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature) and the Prize in Economics, which is commonly "identified with" them, are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields.
The Nobel Peace Prize conveys social prestige, and that award also is often politically controversial. With the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economics are presented in Stockholm, Sweden, at the annual Prize Award Ceremony on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death.
The Nobel Foundation refers to those six prizes awarded in Stockholm as the "Swedish Prizes." The Nobel Peace Prize and its recipients' lectures are presented at the annual Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, also on December 10.The lectures by the recipients of the "Swedish Prizes" occur in the days prior to December 10.
Since the Nobel Prize is regarded by far as the most prestigious prize in the world, the Award Ceremonies as well as the Banquets in Stockholm and Oslo on 10 December have been transformed from local Swedish and Norwegian arrangements into major international events that receive worldwide coverage by the print media, radio and television.
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Rabindra Nath Tagore (1913 Literature)
"because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West."
A Pirali Bengali Brahmin from Calcutta, was a Bengali poet, Brahmo Samaj philosopher, visual artist, playwright, novelist, and composer whose works reshaped Bengali literature and music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tagore first wrote poems at the age of eight. At the age of sixteen, he published his first substantial poetry under the pseudonym Bhanushingho ("Sun Lion") and wrote his first short stories and dramas in 1877. He became Asia's first Nobel laureate when he won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Mother Teresa (1977 Peace)
Mother Teresa was a Roman Catholic nun who founded the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata (Calcutta), India in 1950. For over forty years she ministered to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying, while guiding the Missionaries of Charity's expansion, first throughout India and then in other countries.By the 1970s she had become internationally famed as a humanitarian and advocate for the poor and helpless, due in part to a documentary, and book, Something Beautiful for God by Malcolm Muggeridge. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work. Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity continued to expand, and at the time of her death it was operating 610 missions in 123 countries, including hospices and homes for people with HIV/AIDS, leprosy and tuberculosis, soup kitchens, children's and family counseling programs, orphanages, and schools.
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Amartya Kumar Sen (1998 Economics)
Amartya Sen, an Indian economist, philosopher, and a winner of the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences (Nobel Prize for Economics) in 1998, "for his contributions to welfare economics" for his work on famine, human development theory, welfare economics, the underlying mechanisms of poverty, and political liberalism.
Among his many contributions to development economics, Sen has produced work on gender inequality. He is currently the Lamont University Professor at Harvard University. Amartya Sen's books have been translated into more than thirty languages. He is a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security.
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