Indian environmental philosopher and activist Vandana Shiva has been chosen for this year’s Fukuoka Prize, a prestigious award being bestowed by Fukuoka city government in Japan on people who contribute to academia, arts, and culture in Asia.

Ms. Shiva is the seventh Indian to receive the award and was presented with the official notification of the award at a ceremony held in the Capital on Monday. She will travel to Japan in September to receive the award at a function.

“The award is an encouragement of the work that I am involved with. Today we are living in a planet where we are over exploiting our rivers, culture and killing the richness of our diversity. We are today living like there is no tomorrow. This is pushing even the most resilient group of people towards suicide. Farmers’ suicide in India is one such problem. Also the recent incident at Maruti Suzuki factory where a person was killed indicates the deep unrest and greed among people. The economy of exploitation and greed has to stop and we have to re-learn to appreciate and live with the simplicity, beauty and equality that our culture offers us,” said Ms. Shiva.

Japanese Ambassador in India Akitaka Saiki congratulated Ms. Shiva on being bestowed with the honour and said her contributions towards protecting the environment are valuable.

Congratulating Ms. Shiva, Dr. Ashis Nandy, social and culture critic who also received the Fukuoka Prize in 2007, said: “Vandana Shiva is pro-life and her movement and work revolves around the same philosophy. By giving this award to her we have appreciated pro-life. Vandana has shown us that development and sciences can go hand in hand but cant take priority over life.”

This year marks the 23{+r}{+d}anniversary of the award which has been presented to 88 leading persons from various fields in the last 22 years. Among them are Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, sitar maestro Pt. Ravi Shankar and noted historian Romila Thapar.