Bangladesh parliamentary elections is likely next year

General Waker-uz-Zaman Photo: REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh will not have to wait for years, as it happens in countries where popular people’s revolutions have ousted autocratic regimes and military dictators.

The election in Bangladesh is expected sometime in the winter of 2025. In a rare press interview, General Waker-uz-Zaman, the chief of the Bangladesh Army, told world-reputed British news agency, Reuters that a transition to democracy should be made between a year and a year-and-a-half, but urges to hold patience.

The military chief was candid in speaking out that the transition to democracy should be within a year and a half.

Why will it take time to transition? Bangladesh is presently under repair and in maintenance mode as described by the students on the city wall graffiti.

The country is being overhauled, which has crumbled during the 15 years of autocratic rule. All the democratic institutions like the judiciary, law enforcement, bureaucracy, education, election and media have been riddled with corruption, nepotism and favouritism.

Awami League, lifelong president of the party Sheikh Hasina, had deployed his henchmen and loyalists to govern the state institutions, which are supposed to uphold the pillars of democracy.

The inventor of micro-credit Dr Yunus, chief adviser of the Interim Government, has launched to overhaul the institutions through reforms on the principles of democracy.

In line with sweeping government, reforms proposed since Hasina was shunted from power, the army, too, is looking into allegations of wrongdoing by its personnel and has already punished some soldiers, Zaman said, without providing further details.

Come what may, General Zaman pledges support to Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus-led Interim Government, he told the Reuters correspondent Devjyot Ghoshal and Ruma Paul on 23 September.

Yunus, the interim administration’s chief adviser, and the army chief meet every week and have “very good relations”, with the military supporting the government’s efforts to stabilise the country after a period of turmoil, said Zaman.

Regarding the enforced disappearance of opposition, critics and dissidents, the interim government has formed a five-member commission, headed by a former high court judge, to investigate reports of up to 600 people who may have been forcibly “disappeared” by Bangladesh’s security forces since 2009.

The army chief admitted that some military officials may have acted out of line while working at agencies directly controlled by the former prime minister or home affairs minister. “If there is any serving member who is found guilty, of course, I will take action,” he said.

Regarding politico-military relations, he said that he wanted to distance from the political establishment from the army, which has more than 1,30,000 personnel and is a major contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions.

“It can only happen if there is some balance of power between president and prime minister, where the armed forces can be placed directly under the president,” he said.

“I will not do anything detrimental to my organisation,” he said. “I am a professional soldier. I would like to keep my army professional,” he further added.

“The military as a whole must not be used for political purposes ever,” he said. “A soldier must not indulge in politics.”

First published in Northeast News, Guwahati, India on 24 September 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Worries in Delhi grow if Yunus demands extradition of Hasina

SALEEM SAMAD

The delay in ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina seeking asylum or stay in destination to North America, the United Kingdom or Europe, has caused the elites in India’s South Block and Indian Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi to bite their nails.

Every day passes, Delhi is getting jittery for the unwelcome VVIP guest, who arrived unnoticed on a special military flight from Dhaka to Hindon Air Base in Ghaziabad, near the Indian capital Delhi.

On August 5, Sheikh Hasina flew in a helicopter from the Prime Minister’s official residence Gonobhaban to Kurmitola Air Base. She departed on a Bangladesh Air Force C-130J transport aircraft (Flight No. AJAX 1431) and flew her to India.

After a safe landing at 5:45 PM, Hasina’s transport plane landed at Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad. Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval received her upon arrival and held an hour-long meeting high-level discussion. The agenda mostly centred around the current crisis in Bangladesh and her immediate plans.

Sheikh Hasina, the longest-serving woman prime minister in the world was elected to power for a fifth term only seven months ago in January. Her uninterrupted 15-year tenure as Bangladesh’s Prime Minister came to a dramatic end on August 5, when she fled the country amidst a mass street uprising of students and also joined by millions of people.

The unrest, which began with protests over job quotas on 1 July and escalated into calls for Hasina’s resignation, reached a tipping point with violent clashes in the first week of August.

The police and ‘Helmet Bahini’, armed vigilant gangs recruited from Awami League killed at least 400 people in the streets during the Red Revolution which lasted for the last six days of the student protests.

Hasina promoted her nephew General Waker-Uz-Zaman as the chief of the Bangladesh Army keeping in mind that she would protect her and her autocratic regime.

The military chief declared Hasina’s resignation in a national broadcast and stated that the military would establish a caretaker government to restore order. He also announced the formation of an interim government.

Hasina was the first leader and head of government who fled the country to avoid the wrath of the angry students and the public.

The following day, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar convened an all-party meeting to discuss the Bangladesh crisis. The meeting was attended by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, and Mallikarjun Kharge.

Jaishankar said the government is in a “wait-and-watch” mode, but hands-on and in touch with the Bangladesh Army. He said Sheikh Hasina’s presence in India is a courtesy move to ensure she settles down, recovers, and feels comfortable enough to discuss her plans.

He also described that Hasina is in a state of shock and the government is giving her time to recover before it speaks to her over various issues, including her plans.

Jaishankar told the Indian parliament that Hasina has “requested at very short notice” to come to India following her forced resignation as Bangladesh Prime Minister.

The parliament was informed that an estimated 19,000 Indian nationals of which about 9,000 are students. The bulk of students returned in July.

Indian foreign minister also referred to an address by Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-uz-Zaman – made last Monday, shortly after Hasina stepped down – in which he said, “I have met opposition leaders… we have decided to form an interim government…” and appealed for the violent protests to end.

The interim government headed by Nobel Laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus arrived in Dhaka in the afternoon (Thursday) and took the oath of office in the evening. He also announced a 15-member Adviser in his interim government.

For the restoration of democracy, a tentative date of election will be announced by the inventor of micro-credit.

Earlier, in an exclusive interview with NDTV from Paris, where Yunus attended as a Special Guest at the Paris Olympics and had a minor operation a vile warning that “India’s north-east, Myanmar will be affected if Bangladesh becomes unstable.”

Yunus for the last 12 years faced several legal harassments and was even awarded six months imprisonment in a labour case.

Several times, Hasina humiliated Yunus and even said he is a “bloodsucker” and profits from exorbitant loan interests from disadvantaged rural women.

She blamed Yunus for jeopardising the financial support of the World Bank for the construction of the mega project, the Padma Bridge. In a hate speech, at the inaugural event of Padma Bridge, said she wished to dip the Nobel laureate and ailing former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia into the yawning Padma River.

Hasina has nowhere to go in the next several weeks, she will stranded in a guest house on the outskirts of Delhi and India feel embarrassed to have her for long, which possibly dent the renewed bilateral relationship between two neighbours – Bangladesh and India of emerging new government under the rule of Prof Muhammad Yunus.

Several political observers understand, that Yunus after holding the reign of Bangladesh, is likely to appeal to global leaders to urge India to deport Hasina to stand trial for crimes committed against the people during her 15 years of repressive rule.

If Delhi bigwigs do not concede to Yunus’s appeal to send back Hasina, not only bilateral relations and trade would be affected, but would also would spark an anti-India campaign resulting in a call for ‘Boycott India’ and would also more persecution against Hindus in Bangladesh, which will difficult for the interim government to neutralise.

First published in The Northeast News, Guwahati, India on 8 August 2024

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders (@RSF_inter). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter @saleemsamad

Will a vaccine save the economy?

SALEEM SAMAD

Development Economist Dr Atiur Rahman sharing his mind said that once the availability of the coronavirus vaccine becomes a reality, the world economy will recuperate and Bangladesh will also make a dramatic turn-around.

However, a challenge remains of generating new employment and regenerating the labour market. The challenge could be bridled with a long and short term economic preparation, by an energetic team of planners and social managers selected.

The government has to develop a recovery plan of action to generate jobs and employment in both formal and non-formal sectors, says Atiur Rahman, a former governor of Bangladesh Bank.

Atiur says the expectation from the discovery and availability of the coronavirus vaccine has increased exponentially.

Meanwhile, over 100 influential global leaders have joined Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus after he launched an international campaign to make the Covid-19 vaccine a global common good.

The campaign on behalf of Nobel laureates and organizations of Nobel laureates, civil society leaders, and world moral leaders urged all the global leaders, international organizations, and governments to adopt legal measures and declare Covid-19 vaccine as a part of the global domain.

What the founder of the “bank for the poor” meant was that the vaccine should be available at a cheaper price for the developing countries, but not for the West only.

As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across mother earth, there is an explosion of research activities and clinical trials to find cures and vaccines, says Prof Yunus.

The platform urged the World Health Organization (WHO) to design a World Action Plan on the Covid-19 vaccine and appealed to set up an international committee responsible for monitoring the vaccine research.

The research for a vaccine is a long process. The estimated time for the development of a Covid-19 vaccine is about 18 months or so.

Prof Yunus’s campaign has received pro-active responses from more than 25 Nobel laureates, scores of former presidents, former PMs, creative artists, social justice activists, business leaders, leaders of international organizations, academics, and hosts of political and faith leaders from all the continents.

Obviously, private sector research laboratories engaged in the development of vaccines will be expecting a return on their investments. The research results should be in the public domain, making it available to any pharmaceuticals that pledge to produce vaccines under strict international regulatory supervision.

Prof Yunus believes that if the vaccines are free from patent rights, the price will be affordable in the third world. Most of the developing countries’ hospitals are overwhelmed providing health care to coronavirus patients on their shoe-string budget.

The pandemic exposes the strengths and weaknesses of health care systems in different countries, as well as the obstacles and inequalities of access to health care.

Therefore, the campaign understands the cash-strapped developing countries will not be able to buy the vaccine in bulk. The global leaders demand that the availability of vaccines is a right and there must be free universal access to the vaccine for all.

Governments, foundations, international financial organizations like the WB, and the regional development banks have been urged to develop a strategy on how to make the vaccine available free of cost to inhabitants from all walks of life, be they from urban or rural areas, men or women, or living in rich or poor countries.

The campaign underpins the moral responsibility of the global leaders to develop an unambiguous procedure to determine what would be a fair level of this return in exchange for putting the vaccine in the public domain.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 20 July 2020

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist, media rights defender, and recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He can be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com

Women Hurting Women in Bangladesh?

NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

ARE FEMALE leaders better for the world’s women?

It would be nice to think that women who achieve power would want to help women at the bottom. But one continuing global drama underscores that women in power can be every bit as contemptible as men.

Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh, is mounting a scorched-earth offensive against Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank and champion of the economic empowerment of women around the world. Yunus, 72, won a Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work in microfinance, focused on helping women lift their families out of poverty.

Yet Sheikh Hasina’s government has already driven Yunus from his job as managing director of Grameen Bank. Worse, since last month, her government has tried to seize control of the bank from its 5.5 million small-time shareholders, almost all of them women, who collectively own more than 95 percent of the bank.

What a topsy-turvy picture: We see a woman who has benefited from evolving gender norms using her government powers to destroy the life’s work of a man who has done as much for the world’s most vulnerable women as anybody on earth.

The government has also started various investigations of Yunus and his finances and taxes, and his supporters fear that he might be arrested on some pretext or another.

“It’s an insane situation,” Yunus told me a few days ago at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, sounding subdued instead of his normally exuberant self. “I just don’t know how to deal with it.”

If the government succeeds in turning Grameen Bank into a government bank, Yunus said, “it is finished.”

Sheikh Hasina, in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, initially agreed to be interviewed by me in a suite at the Grand Hyatt. At the last minute she canceled and refused to reschedule.

Perhaps none of this should be surprising. Metrics like girls’ education and maternal mortality don’t improve more when a nation is led by a woman. There is evidence that women matter as local leaders and on corporate boards, but that doesn’t seem to have been true at the national level, at least not for the first cohort of female leaders around the world.

Bangladesh is actually a prime example of the returns from investing in women. When it separated from Pakistan in 1971, it was a wreck. But it invested in girls’ education, and today more than half of its high school students are female — an astonishing achievement for an impoverished Muslim country.

All those educated women formed the basis for Bangladesh’s garment industry. They also had fewer births: the average Bangladeshi woman now has 2.2 children, down from 6 in 1980. Bringing women into the mainstream also seems to have soothed extremism, which is much less of a concern than in Pakistan (where female literacy in the tribal areas is only 3 percent).

To her credit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken up for Yunus: “I highly respect Muhammad Yunus, and I highly respect the work that he has done, and I am hoping to see it continue without being in any way undermined or affected by any government action,” she said earlier this year. Two former secretaries of state, George Shultz and Madeleine Albright, have also called on Sheikh Hasina to back off.

She shows no sign of doing so. One theory is that she is paranoid and sees Yunus as a threat, especially since he made an abortive effort to enter politics in 2007. Another theory is that she is envious of his Nobel Peace Prize and resentful of his global renown.

Sheikh Hasina is disappointing in other ways. She has turned a blind eye to murders widely attributed to the security services. My Times colleague Jim Yardley wrote just this month about a labor leader, Aminul Islam, who had been threatened by security officers and whose tortured body was found in a pauper’s grave.

Yunus fans are signing a Change.org petition on his behalf, but I’d like to see more American officials and politicians speak up for him. President Obama, how about another photo op with Yunus?

I still strongly believe that we need more women in leadership posts at home and around the world, from presidential palaces to corporate boards. The evidence suggests that diverse leadership leads to better decision making, and I think future generations of female leaders may be more attentive to women’s issues than the first.

In any case, this painful episode in Bangladesh is a reminder that the struggle to achieve gender equality isn’t simply a battle between the sexes.

It is far more subtle. Misogyny and indifference remain obstacles for women globally, but those are values that can be absorbed and transmitted by women as well as by men.

First published in the New York Times Sunday Review, September 29, 2012

Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times since 2001, writes op-ed columns that appear twice a week. He won the Pulitzer Prize two times, in 1990 and 2006

Banker Yunus banking on emotion defying law‏

SHAMIM CHOWDHURY

WE MUST give credit to Dr. Muhammad Yunus for taking micro financing to world stage and branding Bangladesh as the brand owner and finally wining a Nobel Prize. He may have not invented the idea but certainly he was able to give it a height which no one was able to do before. Because of his personal connection with Hillary Clinton the then first lady current Secretary of State of the most powerful country of the world Dr. Yunus was able to get the world attention.

Dr. Yunus got his first world wide media attention during the first micro summit which took place in Washington where our present PM Sheik Hasina co-chaired the summit along with Queen Sofia of Spain. In the home turf Dr. Yunus got support of the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who went all the way to Washington to unveil Bangladesh brand financial system in first ever world summit on microfinance.

In the early days of microfinance, Dr. Yunus has a success story to tell but not much audience other then few media outlet. The country was going through high trouble. It was couple years after the death of Gen. Zia when Gen Ershad claimed the power overthrowing corrupt BNP government of Justice Sattar. In a state wide televised speech, Justice Sattar claims wide spread corruption in his government and asked military to take over, so did Gen Ershad. Suddenly Dr. Yunus saw some light at the end of the tunnel, military marshal law governments civil Finance Minister Abul Mal Muhit, yes readers, ironically it’s the same person who is our current Finance Minister.

Finance Minister Muhit gave an audience to Dr. Yunus and Dr. Yunus was the speaker, as good orator he was and is Yunus was able to make Muhit understand the value of starting a new bank solely for the poor. Muhit as the Finance Minister was able to get permission of Gen. Ershad to form the Bank name Grameen Bank, a bank for the poor. Ershad’s military regime issued a proclamation establishing the bank and appointed Dr. Mohammad Yunus as its Managing Director, it was 1983 and since then he is the head of this government institution.

It need to be clear that Grameen Bank unlike many other privately owned NGO is not a private entity at all but a government entity with autonomy and Dr. Yunus is nothing but government approved Managing Director of the Bank. Success of Grameen Bank is not just the success of its Managing Director Dr. Yunus’s but the government of Bangladesh and its shareholders as well.

Mohammad Yunus played a wonderful role of mentoring the organization setting its goal. The negative story picks up there where Grameen Bank a bank for the poor changed its role of providing free of collateral cheap loan to the poor especially women to high interest loan sharking business.

A noble cause and idea which started its journey from village Jobra under the stewardship of a young professor Dr. Yunus caught into so-called social business gimmick. Loan to the poor started with no interest climbed to as high as THIRTY percent though in Grameen transaction shows it as twenty percent not showing the actual cost that the borrowers has to bear.

Day by day Grameen involved it self into all sorts of profit making business, telecommunication to making so called energy curd and what not. A brand name Grameen paid a hefty price for that as well not just financially but receiving endless criticism. While the poor people caught into microfinance debt Grameen caught into illegal VOIP business and slapped with hefty punitive fines of hundreds of millions of BDT during last caretaker government and loosing its clean image.

Some people may say Dr. Yunus has no relation to those illegal wrongdoings of Grameen Telecommunication. How ever that notion will not be justified and he had to bear the responsibility. Grameen mobile is a part of Grameen family and Grameen receives a huge stash of profit out of it. So if you accept the profit you have to bear the responsibility as well.

A Nobel laureate like Dr. Yunus never came up with one word to condemn his organizations wrongdoing but keep tight-lipped. His muted unacknowledging attitude of this grave matter did hurt lot of his supporters as well as rest of the nation. Though this is nothing new from him, he kept mum or talked in favor of military and undemocratic rulers as near as past Gen. Moeenuddin-Fakhruddin or Iajuddin government.

Dr. Yunus who started (not really) claiming as the originator/author/owner of this microfinance idea thought about Grameen Bank with same obsession. Like many others who rose to power and fame Dr. Yunus started thinking about him as indispensable and his role as Managing Director as prerequisite for banks survival.

Probably Dr. Yunus himself and many others thought him and Grameen Bank as one and one entity, that thinking process was based on a complete flawed understanding. It is very unfortunate Dr. Yunus did not play an affirmative role on bringing that wrong notion down rather fueled the idea.

A noble idea strangulates to death slowly but surely. A bank that was created to ensure loan to the poor ravenous people of Bangladesh is now hungry it self for fame and ready to play any game. Getting the Nobel Prize whisked away Dr. Yunus into a fairy land of foolishly considering him as indispensable and a savior of the world poor. High ambition and hunger for fame and name ruined his stature and brought him down to earth facing criticism home and abroad.

Grameen Bank was and is an autonomous government entity though it is not just like much other autonomous body but a special one. If the banking law of the country as well as Grameen Bank’s own employee service manual clearly states that all Grameen employees will retire at age 60 then how in the world it is OK for Managing Director Dr. Yunus to violate that law and say I am indispensible therefore I must stay for life and defy any law.

Some Yunus supporter might say there are others too who has crossed that age such as PM her self or others in the cabinet. Yes that is true but that is a whole new subject/concept to deal with. Present law of the land dose allow those position holder to continue their official duty at or above sixty, if you do not like it then go ahead and make effort to change it. But as long the law allows or disallows, you just have to abide by the rule, period.

Dr. Yunus in many of his speech talked about lawlessness in our society and politics but when the time came for him to set the standard he downplayed the law and played his sentiment card and vowed to stay in power as long someone is not able to pull him down.

During caretaker military rule, Dr. Yunus talked harshly about politicians and labeled them as corrupt and promoter of family dynasty. He did talk about fresh leadership to make the difference and now when the question comes about new leadership of Grameen, Dr. Yunus back out and his laughable reply that Grameen will not be able survive without him or there is no one who can assume that responsibility. If so, then it is shame for him that he stayed in that position for couple of decade but miserably or the more correct choice of word would be mystically failed to create a chain of leadership who can and will take new challenges.

Critics say, to keep his tight grip on all matter Dr. Yunus never allowed any new leadership capable of running the organization independently around for too long. Any one who happened to be capable will be removed and a person will be replacing the position with his approval only.

The nine members of the board out of twelve are selected by Dr. Yunus himself and rest three appointed by the government of Bangladesh. Nine members of the board who has been handpicked by Dr. Yunus have absolutely no idea whets so ever of how a billion dollar bank like Grameen runs. They are there no more then to act as rubber stamp to go along with Dr. Yunus whim.

Dr. Yunus has taken full advantage of the disadvantage of his executive board members neophyte of the banking business and ruled the business as he wishes rather then following the business rule prescribed in Grameen’s business policy.

The bank which strictly supposes to land only to the poor’s started funding family owned business defying all rules. Grameen is tax exempted business institution. They do not pay to the government in return they do public service, is this what public service, service to the poor means to Dr. Yunus.

When Grameen Bank’s poor member has to return every singe penny they borrow whether loose or gain otherwise face penalty, intimidation and legal or social boycotts by the group but strangely his family gets a very sweet deal of sharing profit and loss which even commercial banks do not offer other then some Islamic banks. Is this kind justice and honesty Dr. Yunus is talking about while in the international stage.

It is unfortunate that a man of his stature will set such a bad precedence and take ill advantage of his position and international connection to pressure law of the land takes a different course to keep him in his position. It is more unfortunate that now he wants keeps the nations image hostage and play his emotions card once again to keep his position.

It is so childish for him and his lawyer Dr. Kamal Hossain to say that if he was allowed to violate the bank law for ten years then he should not be blamed about it at any letter stage? Does Dr. Yunus mean violation get justified if it was not challenged or corrected in time?

Are we going to say that recent epoch making judgment of high court on nullifying all military rule of seventies and eighties in Bangladesh and declaring it as illegal occupation of power was wrong judgment as it happened thirty years ago and no one challenged it earlier therefore illegal unconstitutional occupation of power by military rulers was justified!

High interest Grameen’s micro credit is nothing but unambiguous rape of frail but lucrative financial body of poor of the poorest especially women. Most vulnerable segment of the society is trapped into Grameen’s loan shark landing microfinance policy, calamitous attempt of the poor to escape from local loan shark known as Mahajan to get caught by institutionalized shark loan lender named Grameen is unfortunate and unwanted.

It’s a farce that the poor of the poorest who need the most low interest finance to change their ill fate are locked into maximum high interest loan up to 30 percent from Grameen while the affluent society gets loan at very low interest some where 10 to 12 percent from commercial banks. Now Grameen might say we are giving loan to someone with no collateral therefore we have to cover our risk. No comments on that as that is a fact, however then question comes, do not call this sort of loan sharking a social enterprise call it what it is.

In U.S. to often you will get advertisement about car loan or housing loan with bad credit or no credit everyone applies everyone gets credit. Those lenders are known in the U.S. as loan sharking institution and they do not challenge it. If Dr. Yunus also agrees that Grameen does the same then their will be no question but question comes when he claims to be doing business of social just. Grameen’s over exorbitant interest rates and alleged coercive debt collection policy has no difference then shark lender of the west.

What is Loan Shark: A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence. Dose that sounds Dr. Yunus and Grameen Bank, Yes it dose. Wikipedia Link explains the characteristics of Loan Shark: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loan_shark

If wants know more about the result of Grameen Loan Sharking business and hide and seek game then go to this link and play the video: http://www.france24.com/en/20080404-bangladesh-burden-microcredit-caring-grameen-bank-mohammed-yunnus

Watching this video will raise very suspicious question what Grameen and Dr. Yunus wants to hide from getting out? Its no wonder anymore why Dr. Yunus wrote a personal memo to NORAD asking help to keep donors fund misappropriation secret, WHY? What he is scared off! Why Dr, Yunus appointed director Noorjahan Begum ask her security to tie the journalist who simply says that he wants to ask some question! Hope one day the poor of the poorest will know about the name of the game.

I just read his public statement (March 7th 2011) where he makes calls to the nation. That is just tricky rubbish. When a case is waiting for ruling, his public statement is a mere attempt to fuel confusion among mass people and pressure on the court to take the verdict in his favor.

He and his lawyers are making every effort to make our justice system look bad that is not right thing to do for a Nobel laureate! He himself went to the court challenging Bangladesh Bank notice of his removal now after three days of deliberation his lawyers are talking saying they might not get justice. Dr. Yunus is following a carbon copy plan of Khaleda Zia after she lost her house and court fiasco played by her lawyer.

Within months of getting the Nobel Prize he applied this same sort of public call/statement technique during last military CTG attempting to grab political power in the vacuum using help from military intelligence unit. I surely hope Dr. Yunus stop this uncalled technique and keep faith on system.

I certainly hope Nobel laureate Dr. Yunus will come into his sense and do what is good for the Bank and its poor borrowers not just looking at self interest. Reduce the interest burden from the poor and be a real benevolent banker of the poor. Above all, he will abide by the law of the land as any other ordinary citizen and not claim especial stature just because of he is a Nobel laureate. #

Shamim Chowdhury is an social activist and lives in Maryland, U.S. he could be contacted veirsmill@yahoo.com