The Nobel Peace Prize this year is yet to be announced, ( 11:00 am CET, 11 OCT) but are you aware of how the person is selected? Do you know the history of this category of Nobel Prizes? Here is a brief round up on the Nobel Peace Prize in history.

The selection is made by a committee in Norway, called the Norwegian Nobel Committee which has five members. Thorbjoern Jagland is the head of the committee and a head of the Council of Europe. He was its former prime minister too. To be a member of the committee you should be elected by the Norway's parliament.

There were 231 nominations for the 2012 peace prize. 43 of them were organizations. This could also be an indication that the peace in the world has been falling as last year there were 16 more nominations than this year. At the first meeting itself, the committee finalizes 25 to 35 candidates most eligible for the prize and eventually the final list of five to seven people would be decided by April. Only two weeks before the announcement is made, the most deserving candidate is selected.

Since the introduction of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901, there were 92 prizes awarded to 101 individuals and 20 organizations. The International Committee of the Red Cross has won the prize three times and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees twice.
Only 15 women have won the peace prize yet.

Yemen's journalist, Tawakkol Karman is the youngest person to have won a peace prize until 2011. She shared the prize in 2011.
Only one Nobel Peace Prize awarded was not claimed so far. The Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho had won the 1973 peace prize along with US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger after they made truce with the Vietnam Peace Accord. Kissinger has never delivered the acceptance speech in Oslo and Le Duc Tho has refused to accept the prize.

Joseph Stalin was named in the nominations twice in 1945 and 1948. Adolf Hitler was nominated for the prize too in 1939, but it was not a serious nomination.
(AW- Anil)