People won't let it happen

The people will not let the government take away Grameen Bank which the nation takes pride in, said Nobel Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus yesterday.
Grameen Bank is the only private institution in the world to win the Nobel Prize and the people will not tolerate any move to split it into 19 entities, he said while addressing a reception accorded to him on his winning the Congressional Gold Medal from the United States.
Nobel Joyee Yunus Shuhrid organised the event at the Chittagong centre of Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh, in the afternoon.
Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, was referring to recent recommendations by a government commission for breaking up microfinance institution in the name of reform.
General borrowers possess 97 percent share of the organisation while the government has the remaining three percent, he said, pointing out that the government required at least 51 percent share to take over GB.
There is no scope of doing it justifiably, Yunus noted.
Dr Yunus also said the poor had no fault that they were suffering from poverty. Rather, it is the faults in the system that makes them poor.
Society has given them less opportunity to thrive and the system has been depriving them, he said, making it clear that a change was necessary.

Prof Yunus addresses a reception accorded to him in Chittagong yesterday on his winning the Congressional Gold Medal from the United States. Photo: Star

Poet and journalist Abul Momen, former vice-chancellor of Chittagong University Prof Alamgir Muhammad Sirajuddin and Prof Mainul Islam also spoke at the session.
Earlier, Dr Yunus addressed young people, especially students of different institutions of Chittagong, at the same venue. The Daily Star Readers Club and Drishti Chittagong jointly organised the programme.
Yunus urged the youths to set their aims and use their creativity and imagination to signify their presence in the world.
He also elaborated on his new concept of social business. Social business, said he, was a business from which investors did not get any profit.
“Poverty cannot be a part of civic society.... Rather its place will be in the museum."
Vice-Chancellor of East Delta University Prof Sikandar Khan presided over the second session while MA Malek, editor of the daily Azadi, presided over the first session.