Alt News co-founders Pratik Sinha, Mohammed Zubair among Nobel Prize nominees: Survey
New Delhi, October 5
A couple of days before the Nobel Peace Prize for 2022 is to be announced, a US magazine has reported that the co-founders of Indian fact-checking website Alt News, Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair, are among the 343 candidates.
The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced at 11am local time on Friday in Oslo, Norway.
Of the 343 candidates, 251 are individuals and 92 are organisations, reported the official website for the Nobel Prize. Though it is against the rules, the Time magazine has mentioned the names of Sinha and Zubair as well as the hot favourite Volodymyr Zelenskyy besides the World Health Organisation, Belorussia dissident Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Russian dissident Alexy Navalny, Uyghur activist Ilham Tohti and Hong Kong pro-democracy advocate Nathan Law Kwun-chung.
Times said the names it has mentioned are based on a survey by a news agency. As per rules of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, “neither the names of nominators nor of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize may be divulged until 50 years have elapsed.’’
The survey might have been done among the nine categories of people who are authorised to recommend individuals or organisations for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Alt News has been at the forefront of battling misinformation in India and Zubair was arrested in June for a meme he tweeted four years ago. It was argued that his imprisonment was retribution for his fact-checking work.
The Peace Prize is one of the six awards established by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel in 1895 and is considered the most expansive in its recognition. The winner is selected by the five-person Norwegian Nobel Committee, which is appointed by Norway’s Parliament.
