Indira Gandhi Peace Prize 2021

In news-Pratham, a civil society organisation has been conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development for 2021.

About the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development-

It was instituted in the memory of the former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by the Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust(IGMT) in 1986.
It consists of a monetary award of Rs. 25 lakh along with a citation.
It is given to individuals or organisations in recognition of creative efforts toward promoting international peace, development and a new international economic order; ensuring that scientific discoveries are used for the larger good of humanity, and enlarging the scope of freedom.
A written work, in order to be eligible for consideration, should have been published.
The selection panel consists of prominent national and international personalities including previous recipients.
The recipients are chosen from a pool of national and international nominees.
This year, the international jury of the prize, chaired by the former Chief Justice of India, Justice T.S. Thakur, announced the award of the Prize to the Pratham organisation.
The 2021 Prize is awarded to Pratham for its pioneering work over more than a quarter century in seeking to ensure that every child has access to quality education, for its innovative use of digital technology to deliver education, for its programs to provide skills to young adults and for its timely response in enabling children to learn during the Covid-19 – related school closures.

About NGO Pratham-

It was set up in 1995 by Dr Madhav Chavan and Farida Lambay.
Pratham started work in Mumbai slums, setting up community based “Balwadis” or pre-schools and offering remedial education for students lagging behind their grade level curriculum.
Its outreach in India has now expanded to an average of one million children directly and to five million through government partnerships annually.
Its Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) serves as a model to assess education outcomes and learning deficiencies across 14 countries in three continents.