Professor Muhammad Yunus

Find a condolence statement in Bangla here.

WASHINGTON -- The bruising dispute with Bangladesh's government that saw Muhammad Yunus ousted as chief of the Grameen Bank has not diminished the Nobel laureate's enthusiasm for business projects to help the Asian nation's poor.

Cellphones, drinking water, yogurt for malnourished children and solar power for rural homes are all part of the dizzying network of Grameen initiatives. Yunus chairs the board of many of them despite being forced out as the bank's managing director in May.

He received a hero's welcome Friday at a conference of development specialists. On Thursday, he met Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A State Department statement said they discussed the Grameen Bank and "the United States' interest in further success of Bangladesh's vibrant civil society ... which has lifted millions of people out of poverty."

Such praise is a far cry from the the bumpy ride he's had this year at home, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has accused Grameen Bank and other microfinance institutions of charging exorbitant interest and "sucking blood from the poor borrowers."

Still, Yunus, who obtained his economics doctorate in the United States then returned to Bangladesh after its bloody 1971 war for independence, has no plans to leave his homeland."Not a chance," he told The Associated Press.

In 1983, he founded the Grameen Bank, pioneering the idea of issuing small loans to the poor, which has been replicated around the world. The work earned him and the bank the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. The bank now has about 9 million borrowers in Bangladesh, virtually all women.

Secretary Clinton was pleased to hear about the good progress of Grameen America, which now has four branches in NYC, one branch in Omaha, Nebraska, one branch about to be launched in Indianapolis, in spreading microfinance programs in the USA, and the expansion of social business activities around the world.

Professor Yunus invited Secretary Clinton to attend the Global Social Business Summit to be held in Vienna, Austria which will take place on 10-12 November this year, as well as the Global Microcredit Summit in Valladolid, Spain from 14-17 November.

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist who has championed microfinance as a way to alleviate poverty in the developing world through entrepreneurship, told The Huffington Post that he would encourage U.S. policymakers to change the way they administer foreign aid. Instead of giving handouts of food and other aid, Yunus argues that donor nations like the United States should help fund groups based on a model of social business.

Not quite a for-profit company nor a nonprofit philanthropy institution, a social business is a hybrid in which owners recoup their investment but take no more in dividends. The goal is not to get rich but to provide health care, housing, clean water, nutrition for malnourished children, renewable energy and other goods "in a business way." Yunus said the business model is aimed at "creating a new space without closing down the other sides."

While in Washington to speak to a gathering of international development and aid organizations, Yunus met privately with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She has been a longtime champion of his microcredit work and Grameen Bank, which he started in 1983 to make tiny loans to the poor, 97 percent of them women.

While Yunus was recently forced by the Bangladeshi government to resign from Grameen in what is widely viewed as a politically-motivated move, he said he hoped Clinton would step up her support of social business to help empower the powerless.

Was it a conspiracy? Last November, a documentary aired on Norwegian television accusing Muhammad Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, of a slew of unethical and illegal practices. The most serious was the illegal transfer of $100 million from Grameen Bank, the financial institution he established to help his country's poor, to another Grameen company. The film sparked an investigation by the Norwegian government, but not a single charge leveled against Yunus held up to scrutiny.

Regardless of the film's inaccuracies, its consequences were significant. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed's government began attacking Yunus soon afterward, and the Bangladeshi press all but declared him guilty. Then in March, Yunus was fired as Grameen's director. The official reason was that the 70-year-old Yunus was ten years past the mandatory retirement age for government workers. But to some, this smelled contrived. Yunus had offered to step down numerous times over the years, and his requests were repeatedly denied. Moreover, there were cabinet members older than Yunus, like Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, the 76-year-old finance minister. In light of these inconsistencies, Yunus's supporters cast their gaze on the prime minister.