NEW DELHI, India -- Britain's Queen Elizabeth II presented the honorary Order of Merit to Mother Teresa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, in recognition of her outstanding service to humanity.
The queen handed a blue box, containing a scarlet metal insignia, to Mother Teresa Thursday in a simple ceremony on the lawn of the Presidential Lodge, where she is staying.
There were no speeches or citations at the ceremony attended by only a dozen people, including some of Mother Teresa's co-workers.
The queen wore a white printed silk dress with plaited sleeves. Mother Teresa was dressed in her normal apparel, a blue-bordered white cotton sari.
Mother Teresa, 73, became the fifth non-British citizen to win the Order of Merit, a personal award of the queen to people of outstanding ability, a spokesman for the British High Commission said.
The four other non-British subjects honored with the award were U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower; philospher, physician and missionary Albert Schweitzer; John winant, U.S. ambassador to London during World War II, and former Indian president Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan.
Queen Elizabeth's visit to the former British colony coincides with a summit by the 48 members of the British Commonwealth to discuss global issues, including the U.S. invasion of Grenada and the nuclear arms race.
