Can India win the Nobel Peace prize?

New Delhi: The Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 is to be announced on Friday in Oslo and India is keeping its fingers crossed.

Reports say there are two Indians in the list of nominees.

Head of the Art of Living Foundation, Sri Sri Ravishankar, is reportedly one of the probables.

Nominated by US Congressman Joseph Crowely for his recent efforts at conflict resolution in Sri Lanka, Sri Sri – as he is fondly called -

The other Indian nominee is the anti-child labour activist Kailash Satyarthi. Satyarthi gave up his career as an engineer at the age of 26 to rescue children who were forced to work as labour.

In 1982, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar began to teach the Sudarshan Kriya, a powerful breathing technique which eliminates stress.

Today this program is taught in over 140 countries as part of the Art of Living Course.

At the age of 26, Satyarthi, gave up a promising career as an electrical engineer and dedicated his life to helping the millions of children in India who are forced into slavery.

Today Kailash heads the Global March Against Child Labor, a conglomeration of 2000 social-purpose organizations and trade unions in 140 countries.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and Satyarthi are the only two Indians on the list which has U2 frontman Bono, Irish rock star Bob Geldof, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Bono and Gedolf had organised the Live 8 concerts last year to seek more money from Western leaders for their efforts to relieve poverty in Africa.

Last year, the International Atomic Energy Agency and its leader, Mohamed ElBaradei, were chosen from 199 nominations for their efforts to save humanity from nuclear weapons.

The Peace Prize is awarded annually in Oslo, the capital of Norway, unlike the prizes in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature, which are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden.

For the past decade, the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony has been followed the next day by the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, which is broadcast to over 150 countries and more than 450 million households around the world.

The concert has received worldwide fame and participation of top celebrity hosts and performers.