Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus has launched a legal battle to prevent himself from being sacked from the bank in Bangladesh that he set up. He says his dismissal is part of a vendetta with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The central bank in Bangladesh relieved the 70-year-old Nobel Prize winner from his position at the Grameen Bank on Wednesday on the grounds that he was appointed managing director in 2000 without the required permission from the central bank and he stayed on as head of the bank past retirement age (which is 60 in Bangladesh).

Mr Yunus had been under fire in Bangladesh for some time because of accusations that the Grameen Bank has been shifting funds and tax dodging. The United States has called for the dispute to be resolved “amicably”. Mr Yunus’ friends say the feud between him and the prime minister began in 2007 when he tried to set up a political party during the interim military rule.

Mr Yunus was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006 for his groundbreaking work providing microcredit to poor people in developing countries. As a result poor people, many of them women were able to begin small businesses to escape a life of poverty. As a result he is very popular among the poor.
 

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