Bangladeshi Prime minister Sheikh Hasina resigned from office after 15 years in power and fled on a plane to India after student-led protests in college campuses and civilian-led protests that turned violent and left lots of people killed.
They were protesting over a 40% government quota that was enacted on government jobs. These quotas were considered unfair to some people as they thought they were earning enough to live a comfortable life. It even led to civilian protests all over the country of Bangladesh as well.
Hasina took office in 2009 and became the longest serving female prime minister in Bangladesh’s history and the second female prime minister since Begum Khaleda Zia from 1991-2006. Protesters even broke into her office and started looting stuff from her area and burned it down.
Bangladeshi president Mohammad Shahabuddin dissolved the parliament, then said that an interim government shall be formed afterwards, with 2006 Nobel Laureate and economist, Mohammad Yunus, to take power over the interim government until a permanent government is formed and established.
Yunus has been a strong critic of Hasina in the past and it will be interesting to see how he runs the government of Bangladesh in his 80s. Yunus is mainly known for his microfinance and micro managed loans in his economic policies that have shaped the world for what we know today such as bitcoin etc. It’ll be interesting to see how he can use that knowledge to fix a country’s economy that is currently in turmoil and is going through a lot of civil unrest right now.
