The Bangladesh army chief Waker-Uz-Zaman is scheduled to meet with the protest leaders at 12 pm local time (0600 GMT) on Tuesday.
Who is Muhammad Yunus?
Muhammad Yunus, born on June 28, 1940, in Chittagong, Bangladesh, is a distinguished social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader. He rose to international prominence in 2006 when he and the Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize for their pioneering work in microcredit and microfinance. These initiatives provide small loans to underserved entrepreneurs, empowering them to achieve economic and social development despite limited access to traditional banking services.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Yunus has been honored with numerous prestigious awards, including the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010. He co-founded Yunus Social Business – Global Initiatives (YSB) in 2011, which focuses on promoting social businesses worldwide. YSB supports these enterprises through incubator funds and advisory services, working with various organizations such as companies, governments, foundations, and NGOs.
Yunus served as the Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland from 2012 to 2018 and was previously a professor of economics at Chittagong University. He has also played a significant role in Grameen America and the Grameen Foundation, which continue his efforts in microcredit. From 1998 to 2021, he was a board member of the United Nations Foundation, contributing to a range of UN initiatives.
Professor Yunus has an extensive educational background, having studied at Dhaka University in Bangladesh before receiving a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1969. He began his academic career as an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University and later returned to Bangladesh to head the economics department at Chittagong University.
Throughout his career, Yunus has held various influential positions, including serving on the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women (1993-1995), the Global Commission on Women’s Health, and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance. His contributions have been recognized globally, with accolades such as the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science, the World Food Prize, the King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Award, the Volvo Environment Prize, the Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom Award, and the Seoul Peace Prize.
In response to the famine in Bangladesh in 1974, Yunus sought to make a tangible difference for the impoverished. He initiated long-term loans to help individuals start their own small businesses, which led to the establishment of the Grameen Bank and the broader movement of microfinance. This innovative approach has helped countless people escape poverty and improve their quality of life.
Yunus was sentenced to six months in jail by a court for violating the labour laws in this year’s January but later in March he was granted bail.
He was also jailed in a USD 2.3 million embezzlement case. The embezzlement case involves a workers welfare fund of Grameen Telecom, which owns 34.2 per cent of the country’s largest mobile phone company, Grameenphone, a subsidiary of Norway’s telecom giant Telenor.
The charges involve the embezzlement of over 250 million takas and money laundering. The accused gave the money to trade union leaders instead of the workers. This way they deprived the ordinary workers of their rightful earnings.