Dr. Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus was born in 28th June, 1940 in the village of Bathua, in Hathazari, Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the third of 14 children of whom five died in infancy. His father was a successful goldsmith who always encouraged his sons to seek higher education. But his biggest influence was his mother, Sufia Khatun, who always helped any poor that knocked on their door. This inspired him to commit himself to eradication of poverty. His early childhood years were spent in the village. In 1947, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, where his father had the jewelery business.

In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist from Chittagong University, led his students on a field trip to a poor village. They interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and learnt that she had to borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for each stool made. After repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as high as 10% a week, she was left with a penny profit margin. Had she been able to borrow at more advantageous rates, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion and raise herself above subsistence level.

Realizing that there must be something terribly wrong with the economics he was teaching, Yunus took matters into his own hands, and from his own pocket lent the equivalent of ? 17 to 42 basket-weavers. He found that it was possible with this tiny amount not only to help them survive, but also to create the spark of personal initiative and enterprise necessary to pull themselves out of poverty.

Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus carried on giving out 'micro-loans', and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning 'village bank' founded on principles of trust and solidarity. In Bangladesh today, Grameen has 2,564 branches, with 19,800 staff serving 8.29 million borrowers in 81,367 villages. On any working day Grameen collects an average of $1.5 million in weekly installments. Of the borrowers, 97% are women and over 97% of the loans are paid back, a recovery rate higher than any other banking system. Grameen methods are applied in projects in 58 countries, including the US, Canada, France, The Netherlands and Norway.

Cox’s Bazar

Cox’s Bazar is known for its wide sandy beach which is claimed to be the world’s longest natural sandy sea beach. It is an unbroken 125 km sandy sea beach with a gentle slope. it is a good place for sea bathing. It is located 150 km south of Chittagong. Cox’s Bazar is also known by the name “Panowa”, the literal translation of which means “yellow flower”. Its other old name was “Palongkee”. The modern Cox’s Bazar derives its name from Captain Cox, an officer serving in British India in 18th century. Although Cox’s Bazar is one of the most visited tourist destinations in Bangladesh, it has yet to become a major international tourist destination, due to lack of publicity.

Places of interest along the beach

Cox’s Bazar is famous for its beautiful sea beach and for sunset. Its has also some other tourist attractions, including
Laboni Beach
Laboni beach is the main beach of Cox’s Bazar. It is the closest sea beach to the town. Near the beach there are hundreds of shops selling souvenirs and beach accessories to the tourists
Enani beach
Enani beach is located 35km south of Cox’s Bazar town. This beach is famous for its golden sand and clean shark free water which is ideal for sea bathing. Most tourists prefer to come down here for relaxing because it is free from the crowd of tourists.
Himchari
Himchari is located about 18km south of Cox’s Bazar. Himchari is famous for its waterfalls. The road to Himchari runs by the open sea on one side and hills on the other which makes the journey to Himchari very attractive.

The largest mangrove forest of the world

Sundarbans mangrove forest is the largest in the world, and covers areas of India and Bangladesh for more than 80 kilometers in forming Sundarbans National Park, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.
A third of this area is covered by water and marshes, as well Sundarbans since 1966 has been considered a sanctuary for wildlife because it is estimated that there live about 400 Royal Bengal Tigers and more than 30,000 deer in this area.
The forest lies at the feet of the Ganges and is spread across areas of Bangladesh and West Bengal, India, forming the seaward fringe of the delta. The seasonally-flooded Sundarbans freshwater swamp forests lie inland from the mangrove forests. The forest covers 10,000 km2 of which about 6,000 are in Bangladesh. It became inscribed as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1997, but while the Bangladeshi and Indian portions constitute the same continuous ecotope, these are separately listed in the UNESCO world heritage list as the Sundarbans and Sundarbans National Park, respectively. The Sundarbans is intersected by a complex network of tidal waterways, mudflats and small islands of salt-tolerant mangrove forests. The area is known for the eponymous Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), as well as numerous fauna including species of birds, spotted deer, crocodiles and snakes. It is estimated that there are now 500[citation needed] Bengal tigers and about 30,000 spotted deer in the area. Sundarbans was designated a Ramsar site on May 21, 1992. The fertile soils of the delta have been subject to intensive human use for centuries, and the ecoregion has been mostly converted to intensive agriculture, with few enclaves of forest remaining. The remaining forests, together with the Sundarbans mangroves, are important habitat for the endangered tiger. Additionally, the Sundarbans serves a crucial function as a protective flood barrier for the millions of inhabitants in and around Kolkata (Calcutta) against the result of cyclone activity.
Sundarbans is home to many different species of birds, mammals, insects, reptiles and fish. It is estimated that there may be found more than 120 species of fish and over 260 species of birds and more than fifty species of reptiles and eight amphibians. Many tourists go there to see the Bengal tigers, saltwater crocodiles, leopards and snakes cobra.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh /bɑːŋlɑːdɛʃ/; Listeni/ˌbæŋɡləˈdæʃ/ (Bengali: বাংলাদেশ, pronounced: [ˈbaŋlad̪eʃ] ( listen), lit. "The nation of Bengal"), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bengali: গণপ্রজাতন্ত্রী বাংলাদেশ Gônôprôjatôntri Bangladesh), is a country in South Asia. It is bordered by India to its west, north and east; Burma to its southeast and separated from Nepal and Bhutan by the Chicken’s Neck corridor. To its south, it faces the Bay of Bengal. Bangladesh is the world's eighth-most populous country, with over 160 million people, and among the most densely populated countries. It forms part of the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal, along with the neighbouring Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura.

The present-day borders of Bangladesh took shape during the Partition of Bengal and British India in 1947, when the region became East Pakistan, part of the newly formed state of Pakistan. It separated from West Pakistan by 1 400 km of Indian territory. Due to political exclusion, ethnic and linguistic discrimination and economic neglect by the politically dominant western wing, nationalism, popular agitation and civil disobedience led to the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. After independence, the new state endured poverty, famine, political turmoil and military coups. The restoration of democracy in 1991 has been followed by relative calm and economic progress. In 2014, the Bangladeshi general election was boycotted by major opposition parties, resulting in a parliament and government dominated by the Awami League and its smaller coalition partners.

Bangladesh is a unitary parliamentary republic with an elected parliament called the Jatiyo Sangshad. Bengalis form the country's largest ethnic group, along with indigenous peoples in northern and southeastern districts. Geographically, the country is dominated by the fertile Bengal delta, the world's largest delta. The four largest and constitutionally recognized religions in the country are Islam (89%), Hinduism (8%), Buddhism (1%) and Christianity (0.5%).

Bangladesh is identified as a Next Eleven economy. It has achieved significant strides in human and social development since independence, including in progress in gender equity, universal primary education, food production, health and population control.[6][7][8] However, Bangladesh continues to face numerous political, economic, social and environmental challenges, including political instability, corruption, poverty, overpopulation and climate change.

Bangladesh is a founding member of SAARC, the Developing 8 Countries and BIMSTEC. It contributes one of the largest peacekeeping forces to the United Nations. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Non-Aligned Movement.