Sri Sri Ravi Shankar nominated for Nobel Peace Prize?

New Delhi: His admirers feel that the honour is long overdue – Nobel Peace Prize for Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

As per a report in The Hindustan Times, the Art of Living founder's name has appeared as a likely contender for the prestigious award. The nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize – due to be announced sometime around October – closed on February 1. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is also among this year's Padma Vibhushan awardees.

HT refers to a report published by Thomson Reuters Foundation in its blog on February 1 that read: “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.”

Sri Sri Ravishankar has played an important role in the attempts to bring peace to Colombia. The Indian spiritual leader, during his Cuba tour in 2015, had held several rounds of discussions with leaders of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) in an exercise of confidence-building for the peace process in the Latin American nation.

During these talks, FARC leaders had agreed to follow Gandhian principle of non-violence to attain its political objectives.

In recognition for his efforts, Columbian government had in July last year honoured Sri Sri with their highest civilian award, ‘Orden de la Democracia Simón Bolívar’.

A designated terrorist organization by the UN and USA, the left-wing FARC is involved in the Colombian armed conflict since 1964.

Since November 2012, FARC has been hammering out peace terms with government negotiators to bring an end to five decades of war and conflict, which has killed more than 2,00,000 people and uprooted more than six million people.