DITN: Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank win Nobel Prize

[DITN = Desis In The News]

Prof. Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank of Bangladesh have won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Below you will find resources, video and audio links, a list of other South Asian Nobel laureates and much more. [ Please send links or items to share to saja[at]columbia.edu - or post directly into the comments section below. ]

Via AP:

The economist and his bank, who will share the prize, were cited for their efforts to help "create economic and social development from below" in their home country by using innovative economic programs such as microcredit
lending.

"Every single individual on earth has both the potential and the right to live a decent life. Across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about
their own development," the Nobel Committee said in its citation.

On Sept. 19, 2006, SAJA held a global web chat with Prof. Yunus and a recording is available for you to listen/download:

[ Click to listen to a SAJA Q&A with Prof. Yunus in MP3 format (41 minutes) or right-click (or Apple click for Mac people) to save the MP3 file onto your own computer, iTunes/iPod, etc. ]

You will be able to listen to him being interviewed by SAJA co-founder Sree Sreenivasan. They took questions from more than 10 countries. Prof. Yunus gave out his own e-mail address and encouraged people to write in. Of course, he'll now need to get a new address!

Coverage:

• Shobak blog by writer/activist Naeem Mohaiemen (extensive commentary & coverage, video links and more)
• Oct. 12, 2006:
  
  • From Abu Taher <abutaher[at]aol.com>
    There will be a public celebration in Brooklyn, hosted by the local Bangladeshi community,  7 p.m. in Sugandha restaurant. 486 Macdonald Ave., Brooklyn.
  • TV: In 2001, Fred de Sam Lazaro and Kevin McAndrews did a profile on Prof. Yunus and Grameen. The NewsHour will rerun it tonight.
    http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/jan-june01/grameen.html
    

Resources:

• Video of in-depth interview with Charlie Rose on PBS
• Grameen Bank
• Grameen Foundation

Nobels with a South Asia connection (this list was originally compiled by SAJA, with additional notations and links by SepiaMutiny):

• V.S. Naipaul (Literature, 2001)
• Amartya Sen (Economics, 1998)
• Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama (Peace, 1989)
• Subramanyan Chandrasekhar (Physics, 1983) [black holes]
• Mother Teresa (Peace, 1979)
• Abdus Salam (Physics, 1979) [electroweak theory; first from Pakistan]
• Har Gobind Khorana (Medicine, 1968) [synthetic RNA]
• Sir C.V. Raman (Physics, 1930) [spectroscopy, Raman effect]
• Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913) [first Asian to win]
• Rudyard Kipling (Literature, 1907)
• Ronald Ross (Medicine, 1902) [malaria]
  
  It's worth noting that Mahatma Gandhi did not win the Nobel Peace Prize - here's an explanation of the circumstances of the biggest omission in Nobel history.
  

OFFICIAL BIO: Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves. Today, the Grameen Bank is at the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through micro-lending.  Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.

After studying at Dhaka University in Bangladesh, Dr. Yunus was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University, from which he received his Ph.D. in economics in 1969. The following year, he became an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University.  Returning to Bangladesh, Yunus headed the economics department at Chittagong University.

From 1993 to 1995, Professor Yunus was a member of the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women, a post to which he was appointed by the UN secretary general.  He has served on the Global Commission of Women’s Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance.

Professor Yunus is the recipient of numerous international awards for his ideas and endeavors, including the Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993),Sri Lanka; Humanitarian Award (1993), CARE, USA; World Food Prize (1994), World Food Prize Foundation, USA; Independence Day Award (1987), Bangladesh’s highest award; King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Award (2000), King Hussien Foundation, Jordan; Volvo Environment Prize (2003), Volvo Environment Prize Foundation, Sweden; Nikkei Asia Prize for Regional Growth (2004), Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan; Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom Award (2006), Roosevelt Institute of The Netherlands; and the Seoul Peace Prize (2006), Seoul Peace Prize Cultural Foundation, Seoul, Korea.

If you have suggestions for future Newsmaker Q&As, please let us know via e-mail: sajaHQ@gmail.com