Nobel laureate Tutu to receive Gandhi Peace Award

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

Johannesburg (dpa) - South African Nobel Laureate and former Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu is to receive India's Gandhi Peace Award in recognition of his contribution to society and political transformation, visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced in Johannesburg on Monday.

Singh was speaking during a tour of Constitution Hill in downtown Johannesburg, the location of South Africa's recently-built new Constitutional Court and of a former jail where Indian icon Mahatma Gandhi was once incarcerated.

Tutu had displayed "truly Gandhian values," Singh said.

Tutu was one of the most vocal anti-apartheid campaigners. In 1984, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to the fight against black oppression. The now retired, but very active cleric, turns 75 years on October 7.

Singh attended the opening of an exhibition titled "Gandhi, Prisoner of Conscience" that details his incarceration in the early 1900s at the Old Fort prison complex adjacent to the Constitutional Court precinct on the edge of Johannesburg's inner city.

South Africa launched countrywide celebrations to mark the centenary of Gandhi's satyagraha movement of non-violent resistance that he developed and launched in the 20 years he spent in South Africa - 12 years of which he spent in Johannesburg.

Singh also offered words of praise for former South African president Nelson Mandela saying that the mantle of Gandhi seemed to have descended on Mandela, before a brief meeting with 88-year-old statesman in another part of the city.

The two men shook hands before a group of journalists gathered in the fading late afternoon light outside Mandela's office in the north-eastern suburb of Houghton.

Singh was to attend an official dinner hosted by Mbeki on Monday night. The two men met for bilateral talks earlier in the day, with Singh giving India's backing for South Africa's ambition for a permanent seat on a reformed United Nations Security Council.

South Africa is scheduled to take up a non-permanent seat, with the blessing of the African Union, in January 2007, but like India, Japan, Brazil and Germany, it hopes to become a permanent member.

Singh and Mbeki discussed this and a range of other issues, including the fight against terrorism, the two pledging cooperation in this area.

The Indian leader arrived for a four-day visit Saturday, with the first two days taken up largely with visits and events commemorating the experiences and contribution of Gandhi to South African history.

His visit, the first by an Indian premier in a decade, drew wide local interest.