Sri Sri Ravishankar to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize?

There are a lot of names doing the rounds for this year's list of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. And one of them is Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

A report in Hindustan Times states that the founder of the Art of Living Foundation has been key in the peace negotiations in Columbia. The Thompson Reuters foundation has stated on its blog, “The Norwegian Nobel Institute does not publish names of nominees, but Nobel watchers have said former US spy agency contractor Edward Snowden and peace negotiators in Colombia have also been nominated."

The possible list of nominees includes an 85-year-old Greek grandmother photographed bottle-feeding a Syrian baby refugee and Hollywood actress Susan Sarandon for her work for refugees in Greece, says the daily. But the Art of Living Foundation spokesperson has told the daily that they were not aware of Sri Sri's nomination. 

The report adds that the Art of Living Foundation played an important role in bringing peace in Columbia since November 2012. The Columbian government had in July, 2015, honoured Sri Sri with their highest civilian award, ‘Orden de la Democracia Simón Bolívar’, in recognition of his work. When he was in Cuba in 2015, Sri Sri also held discussions with leaders of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) as part of a confidence building measure in Columbia, adds the report. 

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was conferred the Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honour, in January this year.

The nominee list for the Nobel Peace Prize closes on February 1 and is announced in October. Three Indians have received it so far - Mother Teresa (1979), founder of Missionaries of Charity, the 14th Dalai Lama (1989), head of the Tibetan government in exile, and children’s rights and education advocate Kailash Satyarthi (2014) who shared the distinction with Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan.