Swami Agnivesh, Asghar Ali Engineer to Receive “Alternative Nobel Prize”

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HYDERABAD, INDIA, September 20, 2004: Two distinguished Indian religious figures, Swami Agnivesh and Asghar Ali Engineer, who have worked unceasingly for social justice and communal harmony for more than two decades, have been selected for the 2004 Right Livelihood Honorary Award, popularly known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.” Baron Jakob Von Uexkull, Chairman of the Right Livelihood Awards Foundation, announced the decisions of the international jury of the Foundation, which met here from September 12 till today to select the winners of this year’s awards. He said for the first time in the 25-year history of the Foundation, its jury met outside Sweden. The awards would be presented from the Swedish Houses of Parliament a day before the presentation of the Nobel Prize, the Baron said. Memorial, an international voluntary organization working in Russia, Ms. Bianca Jaggera, a Nicaraguan social activist, and Raul Montenegro, an Argentinian scientist who worked for ecological awareness and prevention of environmental degradation, shared the Right Livelihood cash award totalling US$268,000. The awards were for dedicated work at the community level in development, human rights, ecology, renewable energy and gender empowerment among others, the Chairman of the Right Livelihood Awards Foundation said.