Shawdesh Desk:

Professor Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi Peace Nobel Laureate, who is facing corruption charges in Dhaka, says that he has been exposed to a hostile environment in the country for reasons that he does not know.

Professor Yunus, who has already been awarded a six-month prison sentence in a case, and is presently at large on bail, however, hopes that he ‘would eventually get justice’.

The Nobel Laureate made the observations while giving an exclusive interview with New Age at Yunus Centre in the city on March 6.

Explaining the hostilities that he is exposed to, Professor Yunus says that he ‘has publicly been called a blood-sucker of the poor, usurer, tax evader and even a money-launder’ by the country’s Prime Minister.

He rejected all those allegations during the interview and said that he had ‘no clue as to why’ the Prime Minister was ‘so angry’ at him.

When asked whether he would respond positively, ‘if invited by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to work together’, Yunus said that he had ‘no problem to work with anyone for the greater good of the country’.

Professor Yunus said that ‘democratic transformation of society and state is a must for ensuring better rate of integrated economic development’. He, however, observed that ‘the organizations having no democratic practices within themselves cannot contribute to the democratic growth of politics, which is essential for a higher rate of development’.

Professor Yunus believes that the ‘foreign powers like India, China, and the United States meddling in the national politics of Bangladesh is undesirable’, while ‘democracy and people’s unity’ are the ‘solution to this problem’.