Bangladesh’s interim govt to take oath on Thursday night, may have 15 members: Report

Bangladesh's interim government will take oath on Thursday night, local media reported on Wednesday evening. According to the Dhaka Tribune, Bangladesh's Chief of Army Staff General Waker-Uz-Zaman announced that the oath-taking ceremony of the interim government will be held at 8pm on Thursday.

Speaking at a press briefing at the Army Headquarters on Wednesday, General Waker-Uz-Zaman said there was a proposal to hold the oath-taking ceremony in the afternoon.

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"However, that would result in a very tight schedule because Dr Yunus [Muhammad Yunus] is expected to arrive in the country around 2:10pm. It would be difficult to arrange the ceremony after that. Therefore, we may hold it around 8pm. The arrangement will accommodate a total of 400 people," he was quoted as saying.

The Army chief further informed that the new government “might initially consist of around 15 members. However, one or two more individuals may be added.”

Yunus to head interim govt

Muhammad Yunus, 84, was picked by President Mohammed Shahabuddin to lead the new interim government. He was chosen after student demonstrators, whose uprising drove Hasina to flee to India, demanded Yunus to head the new government.

Yunus, who's in Paris, is likley to return to Bangladesh on Thursday.

"Let us make the best use of our new victory," Yunus said in a statement to Reuters before departing Paris, where he had been receiving medical treatment while out on bail from criminal cases brought under Hasina. “I fervently appeal to everybody to stay calm. Please refrain from all kinds of violence.”

Outside the airport, he told reporters: "I'm looking forward to going back home and see what's happening there and how we can organise ourselves to get out of the trouble that we're in."

"I'll go and talk to them. I'm just fresh in this whole area," said Yunus, an economist who was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for founding a bank that pioneered fighting poverty with small loans to ordinary people.

The interim government is being formed in Bangladesh after Sheikh Hasina resigned as the Prime Minister on Monday. She stepped down amid nationwide violence over a job qouta that allowed 30 percent reservation for family of the 1971 war veterans. Protesters had demanded her resignation.