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14/10/24 10:23 AM IST

Nobel Peace Prize 2024

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  • For its “efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons”, the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo.
About Nihon Hidankyo
  • Scientists had long theorised that the forces that held together the nucleus of an atom could make up a very destructive bomb.
  • With World War II, research on the subject picked up, not only in the US, which eventually built the first nuclear bomb, but also in the UK, Germany, USSR, and Japan.
  • But by the time the US developed the bomb, in July 1945, Germany had already been defeated, and the Japanese Empire had been pushed all the way back to its home islands.
  • The US leadership, now under Harry Truman, however, wanted to avoid a protracted ground war with Japan. It was also wary of the Soviets entering the conflict in the East.
  • The atom bomb could kill two birds with one stone. On August 6, the US dropped a bomb named “Little Boy” on Hiroshima.
  • The destruction was unimaginable.
  • Those closest to the explosion died instantly, their bodies turned to black char… Nearly every structure within one mile of ground zero was destroyed…” More than 70,000 people died instantly, with the death toll going beyond 100,000 later.
  • Then, on August 9, before the scale of the destruction could even be comprehended, the US dropped “Fat Man” on Nagasaki, killing at least 40,000 people instantly, and tens of thousands more in the days and weeks to come.
Nobel prize for 2024
  • This year’s recipients are the latest in a list of Nobel awardees who have worked for disarmament. At least 10 Nobel Peace Prizes have been awarded for the cause since 1901.
  • Former Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato was one of the two prize winners in 1974, credited with Japan sticking to its policy of not acquiring nuclear weapons.
  • Most recently, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons”.
  • Incidentally, ICAN has worked with Nihon Hidanyo to document the impact of nuclear weapons.
Source- Indian Express

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