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| Mohammad Yunus |
“There’s no instance that any country in the world has developed through NGOs and micro-credit activities …we too won’t be able to achieve progress in the next one thousand years through NGOs and micro-credit activities,” he said.
The minister was addressing the inaugural function of a subsidy-money distribution programme among the farmers of a co-operative society.
The Rural Development and Co-operatives division organised the programme at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in Dhaka.
Without mentioning Yunus, Ashraf said one gets the Nobel Peace Prize for a micro-credit programme. “Which war has he stopped with his activities and in which continent has he established peace through his micro-credit programme’” he questioned.
“His area of work is economics, but he got the Nobel in peace,” Ashraf quipped.
About development of Bangladesh, the minister said co-ordinated efforts of all quarters are needed to achieve the desired development goal.
These days, Ashraf said, people know how one gets the Nobel prize in peace and mentioned the name of an organisation, ‘Motherland Peace’ of Ireland.
“Two women established this organisation and won the Nobel for peace within two months. They ultimately were engaged in quarrel over sharing the Nobel Prize money. Last of all, the matter went to the court and the peace vanished,” he said.
The Awami League general secretary was also critical about Hillary Clinton’s talks here with some youths in a programme, titled ‘Adda with Bangladesh’, during her recent visit to Bangladesh.
He said this was the Town Hall type programme. “Hillary held the talks with youth, and a private TV channel broadcast it.”
During Hillary’s visit to Kolkata, she also held such a programme and it was aired by a TV channel. He said the TV channel aired an advertisement for this programme three days ago. “But in our country we didn’t know about that programme, even the day before,” he said.
In the Kolkata programme, he said, no questions were raised regarding the internal matter of India. “They talked about international politics and the Iran issue,” he said.
But, Ashraf alleged, the moderator of Bangladesh’s programme (Munni Saha of ATN News) set the questions prior to the programme.
“In that programme, there was an attempt to undermine Bangladesh. In the programme, they tried to show Bangladesh as a small country, poor country and undemocratic country. This is disgraceful for the nation,” he said.
Ashraf said: “Only the organisers of this programme have benefited, no one else.”