Pics: She keeps the Taliban on toes, but Malala still has miles to go

Bangalore, Oct 8: In a land where the guns 'fire' for 'peace', a ray of hope is seen in a teenaged girl who wants back her right to go to school.

Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year old girl from Pakistan, braving the Taliban bullets for education is now keeping the latter very busy. With fresh threats from the Taliban, the girl takes it on her stride saying,"my struggle for education for women is creating stirs and I am happy for that. Things will change in due course."

"I am not here to speak against the Taliban. I am here to speak up for the rights of every child," was how she started her inspiring speech at the UN (her first public appearance, after a long recovery from the bullet wound in her head). And the words that tumbled out following this seemed to have been an epic containing the most intimate feelings of a woman who are denied the basic rights to life and education.

Belonging to afamily, which promotes education (her father being a teacher, a poet and a school owner), it was nothing unusual how this young girl's revolutionary ideas attained their full-bloom.

No wonder, she is now the proud owner of 23 awards, that include prestigeous ones too like the National Youth Peace Prize and the nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize 2014.

As she said,"they thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed," her voice is heard and the point noted. However, she still has a long way to go till she achieves her dream of a free society for women in Pakistan.

In Hague, Netherlands

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, who was shot and injured by the Taliban for advocating girls' education, poses for photographers after being awarded the International Children's Peace Prize 2013 during a ceremony in the Hall of Knights in The Hague, Netherlands.

In London

presents a Mirror Pride of Britain Teenager of Courage Award to Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot by the Taliban for going to school.

In Cambridge

Malala Yousafzai, left, is presented with the 2013 Peter J. Gomes Humanitarian Award by Director of the Harvard Foundation and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School Dr. S. Allen Counter, right, at Harvard University Friday, Sept. 27, 2013, on the school's campus in Cambridge, Mass. The Pakistani teenager, an advocate for education for girls, survived a Taliban assassination attempt last year on her way home from school.

In New York

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot by the Taliban for promoting education for girls, is given Leadership in Civil Society award by Queen Rania of Jordan at the Clinton Global Initiative's Citizen Awards Dinner.

In The Hague, Netherlands

Pakistani teenager Malala Yousafzai, right, who was shot and injured by the Taliban for advocating girls' education, is awarded the International Children's Peace Prize 2013 by 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman of Yemen, left, during a ceremony in the Hall of Knights in The Hague, Netherlands.

In Birmingham

Malala Yousafzai officially opens the Library of Birmingham in Birmingham England Tuesday Sept. 3, 2013. The teenager who was shot in the head in Pakistan after campaigning for girls' right to education opened the new 188 million pounds (US$290 million) library which contains around a million books.