Abu Sabet: Khaled Mohiuddin, the former head of German-based international media Deutsche Welle’s Bengali department and a journalist working for a Bengali newspaper published in New York in the United States. He mocked Yunus’s Nobel Prize and said that the Nobel Prize is nothing. It’s just a prize. The price of which is 2/1 crore taka. There is a storm of protest among Bangladeshi expatriates in New York because of the current head of the interim government of Bangladesh and Nobel Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus’s public comments about the Nobel Prize. He said these things in the speech of the chief guest at a meeting aimed at realizing the demands of expatriates at the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights last Sunday.
As of 2016, the cash amount of Nobel laureates was 9 lakh 30 thousand dollars. About 8 crores taka in Bangladeshi currency. In 2017 the amount of cash from the Nobel Foundation stood at 1.1 million dollars, which means a little more than 9 crore taka. The Nobel Foundation decided to increase the cash prize in Stockholm, Sweden on September 14 of the same year. Nobel Laureates are each awarded a gold medal, a diploma, Swedish citizenship and a large sum of money. The amount currently amounts to 10 million Swedish kroner (a little over 1 million euros / 1.4 million US dollars).
Alfred Nobel became the owner of a lot of money through 355 inventions during his lifetime. The Swedish scientist’s elder brother Ludwig died in 1888 while visiting France. But a French daily mistakenly thought Alfred Nobel was dead and headlined, ‘Death Merchant Dies’. Since most of Nobel’s inventions were firearms, hence the title. Nobel understood then how history would remember him after his death. And so in the last of many bequests he made during his lifetime, Nobel specified that all of his wealth would be awarded to those who would work in the interests of humanity in physics, chemistry, medicine, peace and literature. For this, Nobel bequeathed 94 percent of his wealth, which is now recognized as the Nobel Prize. Since the award’s inception in 1901, 23 organizations and 881 individuals have won the prestigious award until last year.
Dr. Yunus taking a dig at the Nobel Prize worth 8 crores, Khaled Mohiuddin said that the Nobel Prize is nothing.
It’s just a prize. The price of which is 2/1 crore.
As a result of his negative comments, there is a storm of criticism among the Bangladeshis living in New York. Many have strongly protested his statement. A protest meeting has already been held in New York to protest his speech. When Dr. Yunus arrived in New York, Khaled Mohiuddin was asked to boycott all events. On August 15, journalist Khaled Muhiuddin joined the Bengali newspaper weekly Thiana published from New York, USA.
Khaled Mohiuddin, who has just arrived in New York, was the chief guest at the meeting, which was organized under the initiative of Fakhrul Alam, the former general secretary of Bangladesh Society. Khaled Mohiuddin while speaking at the meeting. He made fun of Dr. Yunus. He said, Nobel Prize is only an award worth 2.1 crore taka, it is nothing else. It’s just a prize.
He further said that till now you have known that the people are the source of all power. Its words are wrong. Open the constitution and see what is written in it? It is written in the constitution that the people own all the powers. Dr. Yunus is a public servant like Sheikh Hasina. They get paid with people’s money.
He raised questions about the corruption of the New York-Dhaka flight and said that at one time the New York-Dhaka flight was in operation. Whose fault is it closed? It is necessary to find out whether it is all the government’s fault or whose fault it has been closed due to corruption. Is there any guarantee that corruption will not happen again if Biman is launched?
The Anti-Discrimination Expatriate Conscious Society USA and Expatriate Bangladeshi Citizen Society have strongly condemned and protested the highly offensive, impulsive and ignorant opinion of Salman F Rahman’s former Independent Television journalist Khaled Mohiuddin to the Nobel laureate and the head of the current interim government of Bangladesh. They strongly demanded to boycott Khaled Mohiuddin from all other offices including the United Nations during the Chief Advisor’s visit to New York due to this comment.
In a protest meeting organized in this regard, many people including New York’s conscious expatriate society, politicians, teachers, journalists, intellectuals, writers, poets, doctors, professionals spoke. Professor of Finance and Commerce Department of Long Island University of the United States presided over the protest meeting held on September 10.
The press release sent from the protest meeting and given through social media said that after the protest meeting Prof. Dr. Shawkat Ali, Dr. Hasnat Hossain, Professor Dr. Jaglul Haider, Rita Rahman, Dr. Abul Kashem, Dr. Monir Ahmed, Moinuddin Nasser, Khandaker Farhad, Jamal Ahmed Jani, Abdus Sabur, Ahmed Sohail, Mohammad Q Zaman, Taser Mahmud Khan, Shah Alam Dulal, Mirza Azam, Mohammad Suruzzaman, Sayed Tareq, M Rahman Masum, Hamid Sohail and Mirza Azam among.
BP/SM
