Hyderabad, India: She is one among the thousand nominees from India for the Nobel Peace Prize for this year. Leave alone the chance blooming into reality, Vasantha Kannabhiran, a prolific feminist writer from Hyderabad in India believes that all the Indian women whoever worked for the uplift of the underdog women, fought against the devil of HIV/Aids or sacrificed their lives for the cause of human rights and alleviation of rural poverty – are eligible to get the Nobel prize.

Wife of a prominent civil rights activist Kannabhiran, Vasantha started her career in public life as an English lecturer in Hyderabad in the early 70s. Her fifteen year stint as a teacher came to an end in 1985 when she resigned out of frustration that the job did not elevate her capabilities to serve the society.

A sort of “I must do something more” continued to haunt her. With like-minded friends and women groups, she started a small voluntary organization “Sthree Shakti Sanghatan”, which successfully took up several issues that bothered the women community. For a brief while, she worked as Secretary to her husband, during which period she concentrated more on national and international issues, particularly concerned with the human rights violation.

Not content with that she established her independent social organization “Asmitha” in 1991. Enlightenment dawned on her that she found that much had to be done not in the urban areas, but in the remote parts of the rural lands. As a founder member of “Ekta”, a popular voluntary organization, Vasantha gradually began to put forth her philosophy – For real social development and peaceful co-existence, the participation of the younger generation is a must.

In more than many ways, she created a path for herself as an eloquent speaker during her days as a lecturer. Her public contacts range from a villager to a national to international figure. Her extensive camps in the villages opened her mind to their pestering problems. She was a live witness to the rural maladies such as unsafe drinking water, perennial diseases, illiteracy, malnutrition and what else!

During the early 90s, she became a power in the rural belt. She conducted mass literacy campaigns, forced the governmental agencies to have a look at the perennial social problems cutting across various aspects. Her campaign for social justice for the rural women gained momentum with wide publicity in the media. She wrote several pamphlets and books exposing the apathy of the government towards rural poverty. Some her books are – “Twilight without Borders” and “The Environment of Women”. Vasantha profusely thanks her children – elder daughter Chitra who works as a scientist championing the cause of the blind, and her younger daughter Kavita, who is her best critic – for all their encouragement in her social mission.

For the last one century, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to 90 personages on 83 occasions, of which the number of women recipients was only 10. “A woman who receives the Nobel Prize need not be an international figure. There are umpteen numbers of women who suffer and die miserably in the fields. There are women who constantly fight dreaded diseases like AIDS and HIV. There are women who render selfless service for the cause of orphans. Their undertaking is noble all through. All of them are eligible for the Nobel,” Vasantha observes.

A Swiss women’s group divided the world into 20 zones and from each zone selected 2000 names fit the stand the test of the ultimate global honor. Of the 91 women selected from India, Vasantha Kannabhiran happens to be a prominent name. The other two women from Andhra Pradesh are Prameela, a health worker from Guntur and Mugulamma, a handicapped woman associated with literacy campaign.

Release Source: www.c2b2bnews.com

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