http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=175750
Photo: ImagezooThere was a time, not so long ago, when Bangladesh's name was synonymous with disasters.
The calamities were either natural (cyclones or floods), or manmade (political assassinations or coup de tats).
Former American Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger, labelled Bangladesh as "an international basket case" in 1974. Although Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman retorted, "Bangladesh is not an empty basket," the label somehow stuck. Bangladesh's image, however, began to slowly improve in the 1980s when two of its illustrious and innovative sons decided to do something about Bangladesh's abject poverty -- Professor Muhammad Yunus through microcredit and Grameen Bank, and Mr. Fazle Hasan Abed through Brac. The whole world now celebrates Yunus and Abed. Grameen and Brac are being emulated all over the world. Professor Muhammad Yunus won the ultimate honour the world bestows its citizens, the Nobel Prize, in 2006, and Fazle Hasan Abed won the inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award in 2007 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2010.
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