Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus agrees to become adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has agreed to lead the interim government in Bangladesh as the chief adviser, a day after Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country amid violent anti-government protests which left over 100 people dead so far, leaving a political vacuum in the nation.

“When I was contacted on behalf of the students, I didn’t agree at first. I told them I have a lot of work to finish. But the students repeatedly requested me,” a source quoted Yunus as saying to Bangladesh’s leading newspaper The Daily Star.

“If the students can sacrifice so much, if the people of the country can sacrifice so much, then I also have some responsibility. Then I told the students that I can take the responsibility,” the Grameen Bank founder said.

Where is Yunus now?

Yunus is currently in Paris. He is visiting the French city as a special guest invited by the Olympic Committee.

The Daily Star reported he is expected to return to Bangladesh ‘as soon as possible’.

The Anti-Discriminatory Student Movement, the organisers of the recent protest movement in the nation, proposed Nobel Laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus to be made chief advisor of the interim government.

Earlier, Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin declared the dissolution of the Parliament and the formation of an interim government to facilitate prompt elections in the country.

In his address to the nation, the President said an interim government would be formed as soon as possible.

He also ordered the release of jailed former Prime Minister and key opposition leader and Sheikh Hasina’s political rival Khaleda Zia.

The President also ordered the release of students who were arrested during the recent job quota movement.

Key facts about Muhammad Yunus

Born in Chittagong on June 28, 1940, Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006 for their work to “create economic and social development from below”.

In his career, Muhammad Yunus received a Fulbright Scholarship from the US State Department.

He also received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland, a position he held until 2018.

Previously, he was a professor of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh.

Yunus also served on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity to support UN causes, from 1998 to 2021.

Yunus has long been regarded as Hasina’s political rival.

Also known as the “banker to the poor”, Yunus is credited for pulling millions of people out of poverty with his use of microloans.

A Bangladesh court sentenced him to six months in prison in January for violating the nation’s labour laws.

Hasina had often accused him of ‘sucking blood’ from the poor.