The Europeans, the developed, our mentors, our enviable "others" have been practicing this for a long time. Money and enfranchisement have been tied together for most countries. Between 1815 and 1830, in France, only 100,000 people over the age of 30 who paid 300 francs in direct taxes could vote. Before 1832, England had landlords influencing elections through bribery and patronage. In most of the "developed" lands, politics has been whipped from time to time with theories of justice and democracy. In most of them, they have learnt it the hard way. Why on earth shall we pretend to be different? After all, we are strict followers of History and Tradition.

Jokes aside, we wake up every morning with a rainbow of newspapers in our hand. One calls the other the villain, initiating an endless cycle of scams being unearthed in rival publishing houses. One calls the other land grabber, the other brings out discarded, torn, disowned linen and calls it dirty. One calls the other the thief; the other, in turn, calls the other a terrorist. Such is the code that we live by.

Once upon a time, the corporate world used to queue up in media houses to successfully or unsuccessfully win the favors of editors of newspapers. The direction is reversed now. The editor today wears a challenging attire, painstakingly aware of the corporate trap.

As a result a few newspapers have humble circulation and limp with a limited staff, committed to professional integrity. And somewhere around the block, a few are forced to give in to the carrot dangling act. Question is, how many carrots are we attempting to eat for one single lunch? By one lunch, I mean: one life and by carrots I mean: one commitment.

Today, any curriculum vita brags of multiple professional engagements, more than twenty or even more attendance in seminars, a few associations with serious reference-worthy personalities. Truth is, not many have had more than a year or two of service career.

Not many even know how to spell the word: 'media' properly. Forced by our needs of the current times, some sections of the media are either becoming a megaphone for the inexperienced or a tool for greed.

A week ago, the finance minister while addressing the press answered queries of the press, with his usual friendly stance and before he could finish, we were witnessing headlines on the demise of Grameen Bank. To a guided question on whether the government will be delving deep into the off-shade practices of the bank, the Finance minister's obvious "yes" had turned into a statement in isolation. This is an ideal example of an out-of-text scenario and this is what made news the entire evening.

As readers we are astounded by the twists in the headlines. Let's examine the Yunus fever that has again been gripping a few dailies, especially in the past 72 hours. An article by an Indian journalist in the New York Times on the 5th of January, 2011 on the failure of microcredit, mostly in India and also with reference to our honorable PM reacting to the Norwegian expose on Grameen Bank, was interpreted by a local Bangla daily as an emerging people's struggle against the microfinance loan sharks in all the countries of the globe.

The pace and atmosphere of the village was different. That was the first thing we noticed when we came back to Bhaimara after more than 30 years. At the end of the1970s, Bhaimara was a quiet small village, 60 km west of the capital, Dhaka. Most people rarely moved far away from the village and when they travelled they took rickshaw, bullock cart or most often on foot. During the monsoon, when only the houses were above the large inundated rice fields, the small country boats were the only means of transport. The travels were slow and quiet.

Back in Bhaimara in March and April of 2010: The former narrow earth roads are paved and wide enough for cars. The landscape has changed. The new roads have been built through beautiful green rice fields. There are small industries and factories being established where there were paddy fields before. Grey smoke rises from a 30-metre high chimney of a brickfield established in a neighbouring village. There is a factory that produces concrete poles. The market, which previously was small and sleepy, is now a bustling gathering place. The sons of the wealthy families in the village have their own corner of the market, where they have their shops and show-off their newly acquired motorcycles.

There is great technological development in agriculture. No oxen plough the soil anymore. Small tractors do the job faster, cheaper and far more effectively. All land is covered by mechanised irrigation and produce high yielding variety of rice. In the dry season, shallow/deep tube-wells, run by electricity, continuously lifting underground water. All available land, a large part of which used to remain brown and barren, is now covered with green paddy.

What has happened in Bhaimara during the last 30 years? Before we describe the current situation, let us say a little about what characterised the village as we saw it.

We knew Bhaimara well during the late 1970s. During 1976-1980, we participated in a large rural poverty study carried out by the Bangladesh Institute for Development Studies in different villages. Bhaimara was "our" village. For weeks and months at a time we lived with other researchers in the homes of the peasants in the village. We collected quantitative and qualitative information on the socio-economic conditions of the people in the area.

A fairly typical example of the situation for the poor was represented by our neighbour Mosum Ali and his family. He had inherited two bighas of land from his father, which he gradually had to sell in order to buy food. He was about to mortgage out his small, elevated homestead plot as he did not have any agricultural land left. The fruit trees of the homestead plot were already mortgaged to his rich neighbour, who was collecting the mango, jackfruit and coconuts in lieu of the money he lent. In 1980, we were confident that the next stop for Mosum Ali and his family would be the slums of Dhaka.

Another person we feared might suffer the same fate was Geddy, a young, separated woman with two small children living in others' house. She was a helping hand to some households with or without payment. Both she and her children became malnourished as they had to starve quite often.

For many years, we were keen to learn about what had happened to the people we knew in Bhaimara. In March 2010, we went back to begin a new field-work. We spent one month in Bhaimara and lived in the same place in the village and among the same families as we did in the late 1970's. It became quickly clear to us that it was just not the tractors, scooters, taxis and motorbikes that characterised the changes in the village, we saw no more houses with straw on the roofs. All the houses have corrugated iron sheets on the roofs, the walls are of corrugated iron sheets or constructed with bricks. The best houses are built on a solid and elevated concrete foundation. Almost all the 100 families living in the village are provided with electricity. Our surveys show that 40 of the 100 families now have their own television.

The initial trigger for the attack on Mr Yunus was a documentary screened on Norwegian television in November, which dredged up an old controversy about the use of development funds provided to Grameen by Norad, the Norwegian aid agency, in the 1990s. Grameen transferred the ownership of the Norwegian funds from one Grameen entity, fearing its tax-exempt status might be changed, to another. Discomforted, the Norwegian government asked Grameen Bank, which had originally been given the funds, to retain ownership. This was done in 1998. The Norwegian government said in early December that a probe by Norad had failed to uncover any evidence that its money was used for unintended purposes, or that Grameen had engaged in corrupt practices.

But the release of the documentary led to sharp attacks on Mr Yunus and Grameen in Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, accused Mr Yunus of playing "a trick" to evade taxes. She charged microlenders with "sucking blood from the poor in the name of poverty alleviation" and treating the people of Bangladesh as "guinea pigs". On December 24th the government announced that it was planning a "high-level investigation" into Grameen's operations.

Another line of fire opened up on January 4th when a Bangladeshi news website alleged that Grameen's 20-year-old relationship with a printing company called Packages Corporation, which had been owned by Mr Yunus's family since the 1960s, was rife with conflicts of interest. Grameen took over the management of the firm in 1990 to use it for its own printing needs; it has also provided the printers with loans from a Grameen fund. The bank stresses that Mr Yunus's family, who retained ownership, have not gained financially from the relationship (among other things, the agreement with Grameen restricted the owners from getting any of the printer's profits).

Very strange things are happening in Bangladesh these days. There seems to be a multi-pronged assault on Grameen Bank and on Muhammad Yunus, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role pioneering microfinance.

Finally, a court has ordered Yunus to appear on Jan. 18 to face charges of defamation, apparently for saying in 2007 that politicians pursue only money. He could be arrested and tossed in prison for that. And given the timing, it sure looks as if this is an orchestrated campaign to take him out, and seize the bank for the government. If this is a concerted campaign, then presumably it could happen only with the approval of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. And she does seem to have changed her pitch: a former supporter of microfinance, she recently denounced it as "sucking blood from the poor in the name of poverty alleviation."

"Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress." - Mahatma Gandhi

The controversy created in the country involving the name of Dr. Mohammad Yunus was unfortunate. It was unbelievable that the media and politicians reacted to the documentary shown in Norway without verifying the facts with official sources in Norway or the Norwegian Embassy in Dhaka. Their reaction suggested that they were more eager to believe in the story than to check facts.

The documentary in question is "Caught in Micro-credit" that was aired on Norwegian National Television, NRK. It charged Grameen Bank of violating the terms of an agreement signed in 1994 by transferring US$ 100 million given to it by Government of Norway to Grameen Kalyan, a subsidiary of GB. The money was meant for being given out as micro credit and Grameen Kalyan has nothing to do with micro credit. Although the money was transferred back to GB, questions were raised over it by the Norwegian Embassy of Dhaka. After protracted exchanges, the Norwegian Embassy was finally satisfied in 1998 and settled the matter in favour of GB

It was open season in a section of the press and in the community on Dr. Yunus as soon as news of the documentary reached Dhaka. It was taken out of context and sensational headlines such as "embezzlement", "siphoning " of millions of dollars, etc were liberally used to give readers the impression that the Noble Laureate had misappropriated the money and that he should go to jail for it although in the facts that they revealed, there was little to substantiate such a serious accusation.

The Prime Minister stepped into the controversy early. She asked for an inquiry that was fair enough. In seeking the investigation, the Prime Minister's choice of words was subjective and uncomplimentary. Dr. Yunus who was out of the country when the controversy exploded instantly welcomed the call. The matter should have rested there. Instead, the Foreign Minister pitched in with her own spin, stressing that the image of the country did not depend on the image of an individual.

In politics, patience is a virtue. One wished that the political leaders had shown this virtue. If they had, they would have saved themselves the embarrassment because the Norwegian Government later unequivocally cleared Dr. Yunus and the Grameen Bank of any wrongdoing. The country's Minister for Environment and Development Erik Solheim underscored this in a statement issued after the press reports in Dhaka that said " there is no indication that Norwegian funds have been used for unintended purposes, or that Grameen Bank has engaged in corrupt practices or embezzled funds. The matter was concluded when the agreement concerning reimbursement of the funds was entered into in May 1998 under the government in office at the time."

The statement of the Norwegian Minister and facts that have become known since have shown that a section of the media played a deplorable role. First, they treated the allegations as true without checking facts about a Noble Laureate who has done so much for the country's image. Second, they left little doubt that they were happy that something like the Norwegian documentary fell into their hands. Third, they did not consider even the need to contact the Noble Laureate before declaring him guilty as accused. Fourth, they used motivated headlines to mislead readers. Finally, they even created a few "original" stories of their own to "help" substantiate the allegations of the documentary like involving the Indian Prime Minister as criticizing Dr. Yunus leading the Indian High Commission in Dhaka to trash it.