Process of NOBEL being awarded

Hello everyone, i came across this article in Times Of India, i guess this gives a better picture of what Nobel Prize is of and how it is categorized and awarded.

How is the Nobel Peace Prize different from other Nobel prizes?

All Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, except for the Peace Prize, which is awarded in Oslo, Norway. Alfred Nobel had declared in his will that the Peace Prize should be awarded by a Norwegian committee. When Nobel was alive, Norway and Sweden were united under one monarch, until 1905, when Norway became an independent kingdom. Nobel’s will has specified that the prize for Physics and 
Chemistry will be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences and that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm.

How is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded?

The Prize is awarded by a committee of five, appointed by the Storting (Norwegian parliament). According to the rules laid down by the Storting, election to the committee is for a six-year term, and members can b
 e re-elected. The committee’s composition reflects the relative strengths of political parties in the Storting. Every year, the committee sends out thousands of letters inviting qualified people to submit their nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Who is qualified to make nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize?

The persons qualified to nominate include national assemblies, government of states, members of international courts, previous awardees of the Peace Prize, board members of organizations that have been awarded the Peace Prize, active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute. University rectors, professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology and directors of peace research and foreign policy institutes can also send nominations. No one can nominate himself or herself for the prize.

How is the Nobel winner selected?

In September, letters are sent out to qualified individuals to make nominations. February 1 each year is the deadline for submitting nominations. Nominations received after the deadline are included in the following year’s discussion. In recent years, the committee has received close to 200 different nominations for the peace prize, though the number of nominations letters is much higher as many are for the same candidate. In February-March the committee assesses the candidate’s work and prepares a shortlist. From March to August the shortlist is reviewed by advisers and special advisers recruited for their knowledge of specific candidates. But the advisers do not directly review nominations or give explicit recommendations. At the beginning of October, the Nobel committee chooses the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate through a majority vote. The decision is final and without appeal. The statutes of the Nobel Foundation restrict disclosing the names of nominees and other information about the nomination process for 50 years.

Who were some of the prominent nominees who were not awarded the peace prize?

Of the many who were nominated but who did not receive the prize, the most prominent is Mahatma Gandhi. He was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and finally a few days before he was assassinated in January 1948. Although Gandhi was not awarded the Prize, as a posthumous award is not allowed by the statutes, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to make no award that year on the grounds that “there was no suitable living candidate”. The omission has been publicly regretted by later members of the Nobel Committee; when the Dalai Lama was awarded the Peace Prize in 1989, the chairman of the committee said that this was “in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi”. Though the committee has never commented on why Gandhi was not awarded the prize, it is widely speculated that the committee was perhaps afraid of adversely affecting the relationship between Norway and Britain. Some of the other prominent nominees who never won the award are Joseph Stalin, Clement Attlee, Franklin Roosevelt and Jawaharlal Nehru.