Sri Sri Ravi Shankar hits out at Malala, sparks row over Nobel Peace Prize

Mumbai: Spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s organisation, The Art of Living, issued a statement on Tuesday in response to an uproar sparked off by the guru’s recent comments against the Nobel Peace prize and its recipient Malala Yousafzai.

AOL clarified that Sri Sri, as he is known to followers, had been asked by a journalist at a press conference in Latur, which he was visiting in connection with the organisation’s water conservation project, “Are you doing this work for the Nobel Prize?”

According to AOL, the guru replied, “Not at all. What will I do with a prize? We have been doing social work for years now and it has not been for prizes. When good work is done, people think it is for a prize. There is no logic in this.”

He went on to say, “When a 16 year old girl without any body of work, gets the prize, you get the sense that you don’t need to do much to get the Peace Prize. There are political factors at play.”