South African jurist Navanethem Pillay
| Photo Credit: AP
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay for her efforts to promote peace and international law, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee said.
The announcement of medicine Nobel kicked off the Nobel announcement week. Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann, and Georg Nagel have been awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries leading to a technique called optogenetics, which allows scientists to control select nerve cells using light.
Belgian-American particle physicist Francis Halzen is the recipient of Physics Nobel for his contributions to IceCube, a neutrino observatory in the South Pole, and for the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai for untangling mysterious mirror images in molecules, a discovery that has been used to develop countless drugs.
The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced tomorrow (October 9, 2026). The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences, popularly known as Economics Nobel will be announced on October 12.
The winners will get a cash award of 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million). The award will be presented on December 10, the Nobel Prize day, also the death anniversary of Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated that his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
Published – October 09, 2026 02:42 pm IST
