17 year old Malala Yousafzai wins Nobel Peace Prize: Becomes the youngest Nobel Laureate

In a year of rapidly proliferating conflicts, the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday renewed attention on one of the world’s most durable and dangerous standoffs by splitting its annual peace prize between a teenage Pakistani activist and a graying Indian Gandhian.

The richly symbolic selection brings together individuals who took very different paths to the award, but who hold much in common in their outspoken advocacy for the rights of children.

Malala Yousafzai, who at 17 became the youngest Nobel laureate, won the prize exactly two years and one day after she was nearly killed by a bullet to the head during a Taliban assassination attempt in her native Swat Valley. She was targeted for her outspoken advocacy of female education — a cause she has championed relentlessly ever since, in spite of further threats.

Malala, who is the youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner, spoke of how she found out she was the joint winner, during a chemistry class on Friday morning.

'I was in chemistry class and we were looking at electrolytes, it was about 10.15am. I was not expecting I would get this award, and by 10.15am I was sure I had not,' she said.

‘Then my teacher took me to one side and told me, I was totally surprised.

‘I decided that I would not leave my school, so I finished my schooltime and went to physics and English,’ adding how all her teachers and school friends had praised her.

Speaking from the British city of Birmingham on Friday, she reveled in the committee’s decision to share her prize with an Indian, 60-year-old Kailash Satyarthi, who has spent decades crusading against child slavery.

“One is from Pakistan, one is from India. One believes in Hinduism, one strongly believes in Islam,” she said in a statement to the world’s media that she gave only after finishing her usual school day, having learned of the award from a teacher Friday morning. “And it gives a message to people, gives a message to people of love between Pakistan and India and between different religions.”

The Nobel Committee praised the pair “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”

Yousafzai became a worldwide symbol of Taliban atrocities after she was critically injured in a 2012 attack by militants who stormed the bus she was riding with other students. At the time of the attack, she was already known across Pakistan for daring to defy the radical Islamist group by speaking out against its policy of denying education to girls.

Rather than shrink from further Taliban threats after her recovery, she instead expanded her advocacy work, writing a best-selling book and giving addresses at major international gatherings, including at the United Nations.

Her appeals, however, have angered militants and others in her native country. Yousafzai and her family have been forced to live in exile in Britain since her recovery.

In her native town of Mingora on Friday, many were reluctant to celebrate.

“Some people are silent as they don’t like her and her father, but others are quiet due to the possible threat from the militants,” said Aftab Ali, a 41-year-old businessman.

Nonetheless, Sharif on Friday called Yousafzai the “pride of Pakistan.”

“Her achievement is unparalleled and unequaled,” Sharif said. “Girls and boys of the world should take the lead from her struggle and commitment.”