INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
critic of the ousted Sheikh Hasina, Yunus will act as a caretaker premier until new elections are held
The decision followed a meeting late Tuesday that included student protest leaders, military leaders, civil society members and business
leaders.Hasina was forced to flee on Monday after weeks of protests and her departure has plunged Bangladesh into a political crisis
The army has temporarily taken control, but it is unclear what its role would be in an interim government after the president dissolved
parliament on Tuesday to pave the way for elections.Student leaders who organised the protests had wanted Yunus, who is now in Paris for the
Olympics as an adviser to its organisers, to lead an interim government.He could not immediately be reached by the Associated Press for
comment, but key student leader Nahid Islam said that Yunus agreed to step in during a discussion with them.The 83-year-old is a well-known
critic and political opponent of Hasina
signed an open letter calling for the charges to be suspended
institution, explains to villagers the benefits of the system at Kalampur village in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 21 January 2004
Photograph: Pavel Rahman/APYunus was born in 1940 in Chattogram, a seaport city in Bangladesh
He received his PhD from Vanderbilt University in the United States and taught there briefly before returning to Bangladesh.In a 2004
recalled in the interview.An economist and banker by profession, Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the use of
microcredit to help impoverished people, particularly women
He is credited with lifting millions of people out of poverty
Bank in 1983 to provide small loans to entrepreneurs who would not normally qualify to receive them
in 2008, when her administration launched a series of investigations into him
aborted attempt to launch a political party in 2007.During the investigations, Hasina accused Yunus of using force and other means to
recover loans from poor rural women as the head of Grameen Bank
allegedly violating government retirement regulations
He was put on trial in 2013 on charges of receiving money without government permission, including his Nobel prize and royalties from a
mobile phone company, GrameenPhone, a subsidiary of Norwegian telecom company Telenor.His supporters say the charges are all politically
This article first appeared/also appeared in theguardian.com
