Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus on Sunday urged the students not to go away without materialising the dream of building a discrimination-free Bangladesh.
“If this opportunity is snatched away, there will be no future for Bangladesh,” he said while exchanging views with students at his office in the capital.
“Students have sacrificed their lives for the dream. We must implement that dream. We have no way of getting out of it,” he added.
Coordinators of the anti-discrimination student movement and students of various colleges and universities attended the programme.
The chief adviser remembers with deep respect the martyrs who have embraced the death during the student-people movement. He was seen crying while speaking on the matter.
Dr Yunus said since the birth of Bangladesh, such an opportunity that the student-led revolution has created did not come. So, all should remain alert so that no one can snatch away the opportunity.
He said Bangladesh will occupy a prestigious position at the global level as the youth have taken the lead here.
People from around the world will visit Bangladesh to learn how students have transformed it and which mantra they have followed in doing so, he added.
Dr Yunus cautioned the students that the ousted force will not remain idle but will try its best to resist them so that it can run its reign of looting smoothly again.
Congratulating the students, Prof Yunus asked them to remain firm in their thoughts without paying heed to others' advice. “Your thoughts are clear. Your thoughts are right,” he added.
He also asked them to remind the interim government if it stays away from this work.
Dhaka-Delhi ties should be based on equity
“None of us has such a will to stay away from this dream. Our prime goal is to fulfill the dream. Yet, if we cross our limit, you must remind us immediately,” he said.
Adviser for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Information and Broadcasting and Posts and Telecommunications Adviser Md Nahid Islam and Labour and Employment Ministry Adviser Asif Mahmud Shojib Bhuyain were, among others, present at the meeting.
Speaking at the programme, students highlighted various issues and urged the government to address those for the sake of the country.
Over the deaths during the recent movement, the students said it is their duty to repay the debt of the blood.
Taking the floor, a female coordinator of the movement and a medical student highlighted the irregularities at government-run hospitals.
“Measures should be taken so that patients do not face any hassle. We want formulation of such a law where the rights of physicians and patients is ensured,” she said.
Putting an emphasis on brain-drain, another coordinator said, “Brain drain is more dangerous than siphoning off the money. If the brain-drain is stopped, at least one or two Yunus-like figure would have been emerged every year.”
The coordinator urged the government to take an initiative to bring back those brain drains and appoint them at various policy level positions.
Terming movement a part of politics, another female coordinator called for keeping such politics out of the campus.
“Everyone irrespective of teachers and students may have a political identity. We do not want to see any teacher or student with political tag on the campus,” she said.
Urging the government to take measures to bring down the prices of essential commodities, she also called for ensuring the voting rights of people in the next general elections.
Another coordinator raised an allegation for using the religion us a tool of politics.
“The practice of using religion for political mileage must be stopped,” said the coordinator, urging the government for taking a move to restore the law and order.
After the views exchange programme, chief adviser's special assistant Mahfuj Alam briefed reporters at Foreign Service Academy.
Quoting the Chief Adviser, he said Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus said relations between Bangladesh and India should be based on equity and fairness.
“We need to maintain good relations with India. But it should be based on equity and fairness," chief adviser's special assistant Mahfuj Alam quoted Prof Yunus as saying at a view-exchange meeting with frontline students who participated in the student-people revolution, at Chief Adviser's Office (CAO).
He informed that the chief adviser presented the interim government's views on India, responding to a question from a student at the meeting.
Prof Yunus said Bangladesh always gives importance to mutual respect and equity in maintaining relations with neighbours.
He stressed reviving the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to enhance regional cooperation.
