Malala Yousufzai (file)
Malala Yousufzai (file)Reuters

The Nobel Peace Prize committee in Oslo selected children's rights advocates Pakistani 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai and Indian Kailash Satyarthi as winners of the prize for 2014.

Yousafzai gained recognition after being shot in the head by Taliban terrorists in 2012 for her stance of advocating women's education. She miraculously recovered from her wounds, but her struggle apparently still has a long way to go in Pakistan - a major network of 40,000 schools in the country banned her book I Am Malala last November.

The Nobel Prize website wrote that the two were recognized "for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education."

Satyarthi was praised for heading "various forms of protests and demonstrations, all peaceful, focusing on the grave exploitation of children for financial gain. He has also contributed to the development of important international conventions on children’s rights."

As for Yousafzai, the committee wrote she "has shown by example that children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations. This she has done under the most dangerous circumstances. Through her heroic struggle she has become a leading spokesperson for girls’ rights to education."

Noting on the symbolism of the choice, the committee wrote that it "regards it as an important point for a Hindu and a Muslim, an Indian and a Pakistani, to join in a common struggle for education and against extremism."

The two will have the prize worth $1.1 million presented to them in Oslo on December 10.

Yousafzai became the youngest recipient of the prize, which was infamously awarded to the European Union (EU) for its existence, and to US President Barack Obama in 2009 almost immediately after he assumed office before he had any achievements to his name.

The most infamous recipient of the prize was likely former Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman and widely recognized terrorist Yasser Arafat, who was given the Nobel nod after the 1993 Oslo Accords, and soon thereafter launched the second intifada terror war.

Other winners of Nobel Prizes this year were Nobel laureate Patrick Modiano, a chronicler of Paris life under the Nazi occupation, and Japanese professors Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura, who won the physics prize for their invention of blue light emitting diodes (LEDs).