There was a post/blog here about the validity and worthiness of the Nobel Prize of Professor Yunus. I just want to comment on that.

My main point is that Dr Yunus is very much worthy of the Nobel.

So please know more before putting emotional arguments against it, or wrongfully worshiping him as a saint for winning the Nobel. There are 800 people since 1900 who have won the Nobel. 130 of them were in peace, the rest are in physics, chemistry, medicine/physiology, literature, and economics (strictly the economics prize is Nobel memorial Prize - but carries the same prestige and money).

Please look at the list of Nobel Laureates in peace and their achievements to get a feel for what gets someone a Nobel in peace. And you will see that Dr. Yunus certainly has the criteria. Fazle Hasan Abed of Brac also meets the criteria and therefore Nobel-worthy. He may get the prize in ten years, or may not get at all.

Now why do I say Yunus meets the criteria? It used to be that Nobel peace prizes were awarded for making peace treaties, conflict resolutions - because that is what is in Nobel's will. But the committee has expanded the definition of the award by including all the other activities that contribute to peace. Such as humanitarian activities - example Albert Schweitzer in 1952, Mother Theresa in 1979, etc. If someone can help tenfold the food production, that reduces hunger and also contributes to peace. Therefore a plant genetic researcher named 'Norman Borlaug', (who produced high yield wheat, maze and other researchers followed with rice)- the father of 'green revolution' in the sixties and seventies also won the Nobel in 1970. It is said that he saved over a billion people from starvation - and most of that in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are also Nobel Laureates who are not that well known internationally but have made significant contributions. Recently environmental contributions have also been awarded such as in 2007 to Al Gore, and in 2004 to Wangari Maathai of Kenya. Now the Nobel committee thought they should recognize and award someone working in poverty reduction. Now please tell me who should they pick in that topic from the whole world other than Professor Yunus?

Now I have never taken a Grameen laon, and neither have you who are reading this. But how can you deny sitting in a comfortable chair in front of a computer that those poorest of the poor were not helped by the Grameen bank. Why are there millions of people taking the loan and trying to feed their family then? If you are an economist, you can seat with graphs and numbers and try to prove that poverty was not reduced overall. So what? Look at millions of people who were helped. If it did not work out for some - that's ok too. I have seen a lot of people do not like things such as Hilsa or Mango. The main contribution why Yunus was picked was this idea that credit can go to the poor. This has been replicated in 50 other countries, and millions of people got out of poverty. If it had not been replicated in other countries successfully, Yunus would not have been worthy of the Nobel.

Some complain that Grameen has high interest rate. I don't think those people at Grameen are trying to become millionaires. The cost of operation is quite high for such people intensive loan programs. Have you ever thought that some of us are taking high interests loans from high charging credit cards just so we can have more money or purchase fashionable items. Please show me a Bengali living in North America who does not have these fashionable credit card loans. I am telling it fashionable loans because if you compare it to the poorest of the poor Grameen loans - you will see that they use the loan to generate income and to survive, on the other hand most credit card bank loans are not used to generate income but only for spending - occasionally it helps poor students to buy food/pay tuition though. So it has its usefulness among some poor people too. Anyway, long story short, if you are not poor enough to take a Grameen loan, don't trash it. Those people surely would have revolted and not taken these loans to survive if it had negative impact in their lives.

So if this micro-credit thing is a good idea and implemented so widely, someone has to be rewarded - and Yunus was picked for that. If it's a bad idea it simply will not survive after 100 years - but you cannot deny the millions of lives that were helped. Most Nobels are not given on a 200 year timescale. Even some objective science prize ideas do not survive for 100 years.

Other aspects - this year Maarti Ahtissari of Finland was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He is part Norwegian. He commented that he thought he would be ignored for the Nobel for being a Norwegian since the Peace Nobel is selected by Norway - the other Nobels are by selected by Swedish academies. Now some people think since Grameen phone's partner Telenor is a Norwegian company - so it must be that there's something fishy here. This idea is totally wrong. When Tagore got the Nobel, similar things were told that he met some Swedish prince or something etc etc. When Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Grameen phone wanted investment from a foreign company, it very well could have another mobile company other than Telenor. I think foreign investments especially in technology is good for Bangladesh in the short term - it creates a competitive field and opportunities for homegrown technologies to develop. Don't you wish some big technology companies - Microsoft, Intel, Google, Oracle, Motorola, Sony would get more active in Bangladesh.

Now the politics part - Dr. Yunus is not a politician. In fact, before winning the Nobel - I never heard him say anything about politics in our country. I would trust him more when he says something about Economy, and not about politics. Politics in our country is sometimes dirty - civil society should have influence over people independent of what party is in power. There are 70 or so Nobel Laureates (I am not kidding) currently in the US. Their involvement makes US the top country in science and technology and ideas. They may support some party - but they are not really politics people. So why do we expect so much from Yunus that he will fix this or that. He made one attempt to create a party for the good of the country - but he realizes that that's not really his job or expertise. If 150 million people quarrel everyday, then who can do anything. He is an economist - let him do his job in that. He can do more good for the country that way. And don't bash him or put him in any party identity. Or expect too much from a single person.

Another question - why was Yunus not awarded a Nobel in Economics? It is because Economics Nobel is a science/academic award. People who get this usually write a lot of research papers, proposes theory, and have some proven contribution to Economics. Yunus does not quite qualify in that category. But that's okay. People usually qualify in one category whether you are Einstein or Tagore.

Another point - of the 800 or so people who got the Nobel in last 100 years - not everyone's contribution the same. Einstein and Bohr got the Nobel in physics, but so did many other physicists with smaller contributions who do not measure up to their caliber. Tagore got Nobel in literature, but so did many other people in different languages who do not measure upto his contributions. Gandhi was Nobel-worthy but did not get the Nobel, but certainly has done more than most Nobel peace laureates. Edison or Tesla did not get a Nobel in physics because of some controversy or definition of the prize, but certainly they belong to the greatest benefactors of mankind, similarly many people in IT such as Alan Turing, Tim Barners-Lee who gave birth to revolutionary ideas. So getting a Nobel prize/or being a top contributor in any field puts you in a different league among the common people, but those people do not all have the same caliber.