"Poverty, the root cause of terrorism"

from Times Now India

Nobel peace prize winner of 2006, Mohammd Yunus feels India and Bangladesh are distant neighbours and blames the governments for keeping them apart. Speaking exclusively to TIMES NOW 's Senior Editor Srinjoy Chowdhury , Yunus said that it is poverty that is the root cause of terrorism.

Excerpts:

Srinjoy: Why is there such a distance between India and Bangladesh?

Yunus: Bangladesh is the next door neighbour of India. Many people from West Bengal actually came from Bangladesh. But only one bus goes between the two countries. That creates big distance amongst the people the two countries though we share the same language, the same choice. When the Nobel prize was announced for me, there were celebrations in both the sides of the border. But this kind of common feelings is not possible always because we don't know each other.

Srinjoy: India like many other countries has a lot of welfare schemes, many of those are topped down and increasing the possibilities of leakages. How can you deal with that?

Yunus: I consider the welfare programmes as temporary help to the distressed. But this shouldn't become the permanent feature of life. If it does, then you are actually taking the initiatives away from people. Welfare means you are taken care by some else. If somebody else takes care, people don't exert themselves and become inactive.

Srinjoy: In the past and even in your Nobel speech, you have linked poverty with terror. Would you specify your statement?

Yunus: We need to go to the root cause of terrorism. Terrorism has its roots in a very strong sense of injustice. It may be an injustice in the economic form, it may be political injustice or it may be social injustice. Economic injustice is always extreme poverty what no body pays attention to the poor. So, if we can address the poverty issue, social as well as the political issue, there won't be any terrorism.