US to honour Mother Teresa with stamp

 
Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa will be honoured on a US postage stamp on her birth centenary and the portrait of the   "diminutive" Catholic nun by award winning American artist Thomas Blackshear II would feature on it.

"With this stamp, the US Postal Service recognizes Mother Teresa, who received the Nobel peace prize in 1979 for her humanitarian work," the US Postal Service said as it released the list of new postages to be issued in 2010. "Noted for her compassion toward the poor and suffering, Mother Teresa, a diminutive Roman Catholic nun and honorary US citizen, served the sick and destitute of India and the world for nearly 50 years."

The stamp honouring Mother Teresa is expected to be issued on August 26, her 100th birth anniversary.

In 1996, the then president Bill Clinton and the US Congress awarded Mother Teresa honorary US citizenship. As of February 2009, the honour has only been bestowed on five others. Winston Churchill received it in 1963, Raoul Wallenberg in 1981, William Penn and Hannah Callowhill Penn in 1984, and the Marquis de Lafayette in 2002. PTI