Bianca Jagger gets top award
2004-09-20 10:02
New Delhi - Social activist Bianca Jagger, Argentinian scientist Raul Montenegro and the Russian charitable organisation Memorial will be honoured with the Right Livelihood Award 2004, it was announced in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Monday.
The Honorary Award for 2004 goes to two prominent Indian social reformers - Swami Agnivesh and Asgar Ali Engineer.
The Right Livelihood jury, which met for the first time outside Sweden, said the cash award of about $230 000 would be shared by Jagger, Montenegro and Memorial.
The award, founded in 1980 by Swedish-German philatelist and former member of the European Parliament Jakob von Uexkull, aims to give recognition "to honour and support those offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today," the organisation said in a release.
Alternative Nobel Prize
The award, regarded as an alternative Nobel Prize, usually goes to people and organisations working in fields such as environmental protection, sustainable development, human rights, health, education and peace.
Born in 1950 in Nicaragua, Jagger has been a passionate and effective campaigner for human rights, social and economic justice throughout the world. She was married to Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger from 1971-79.
She has been part of fact-finding missions to Bosnia, Honduras, El Salvador, Brazil, Kosovo, Zambia, Afghanistan, Iraq, India and Pakistan. An active campaigner against war crimes in Bosnia, she rescued 22 children from the country's worst war zones in the early 1990s.
Jagger "had shown over many years how celebrity can be put at the service of the exploited and disadvantaged," the Right Livelihood jury said in a release.
Memorial, short for the International Volunteer Public Organisation Memorial Historical Educational, Human Rights and Charitable Society, was chosen for its work in Russia and surrounding countries documenting human rights violations and protecting civil liberties.
The Right Livelihood jury honoured Memorial, its members and staff "for showing under very difficult conditions, and with great personal courage, that history must be recorded and understood, and human rights respected everywhere, if sustainable solutions to the legacy of the past are to be achieved."
Presentation in December.
Argentinian scientist Montenegro had shown what one committed scientist and activist could do to raise ecological awareness and prevent environmental degradation, the jury said.
Montenegro is Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the National University of Cordoba. He founded FUNAM (Environment defence Foundation) in 1982 and has been an active campaigner against nuclear activities, toxic waste, pollution and worked ceaselessly for protection of water resources, forests, wildlife and biodiversity.
The award presentation ceremony in the Swedish Parliament will be held on December 9. - dpa
- SAPA