Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace for 2021

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• Pratham, a pioneering civil society organisation has been awarded the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize 2021.
  • It is awarded for its pioneering work over more than a quarter-century in seeking to ensure that every child has access to quality education, for its innovative use of digital technology to deliver education, for its programmes to provide skills to young adults.

Pratham

• Set up in 1995 by Mrs Farida Lambay and Dr Madhav Chavan in Mumbai.
• Pratham began its work in slum areas by setting up community-based pre-schools and by offering remedial education to students who lagged behind in their classes.
• Its Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), based on surveying 6,00,000 rural Indian children, is now used as a model to assess educational outcomes and learning deficiencies in 14 countries over three continents. 
• In basic education, Pratham develops low-cost and replicable innovations, working with the government and engaging the community to improve learning outcomes. Its programmes now cover children and young adults in 21 States.

About the Indira Gandhi Peace Prize

• The Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development was instituted in the memory of the former prime minister by a trust (Indira Gandhi Memorial Trust) in her name in 1986.
• It consists of a monetary award of Rs 25 lakh along with a citation.
• The award is given to individuals or organisations who work towards ensuring international peace and development, ensuring that scientific discoveries are used to further the scope of freedom and better humanity, and creating a new international economic order.

Source: TH