Sheikh Hasina

This marks Hasina’s first public address since her removal from office on August 5. The 76-year-old leader highlighted the loss of numerous lives due to violence associated with ongoing agitations since July.

One of the first flags raised at dawn on independence, according to the Culture Ministry, is the Congress tricolour. This flag stands as a poignant reminder to Indians of the varied sacrifices made by millions of countrymen during their freedom struggle.

Earlier on August 7, Yunus and three senior Grameen Telecom officials—Ashraful Hassan, M Shahjahan, and Nurjahan Begum—were acquitted in a case relating to labor law violations.

Earlier, student protest leader Hasnat Abdullah had given an ultimatum for the chief justice's resignation alongside other Appellate Division justices. On Saturday, Hassan called for a meeting of the full court with all Supreme Court justices, but students responded with an announcement of blockade of the court premises and issued a one-hour deadline for Hassan's resignation.

In an undelivered speech from India, which Hasina visited on August 5 as her homeland was plunged into bloody chaos, the 76-year-old leader said her resignation was to avert a "procession of dead bodies".

The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council and the Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad detailed these incidents in a letter addressed to Muhammad Yunus, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate recently appointed as the head of an interim government, as reported by The Daily Star.

S Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs posted in social media a day back he was in receipt of a call from David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary of the UK where both of them, during the notoriously short conversation brought up the situation pertaining to Bangladesh and West Asia.

At 84, Yunus—whose innovation of microlending won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006—was asked to lead a caretaker government by President Mohammed Shahabuddin after Prime Minister Hasina resigned and fled to India as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators protesting her administration's contentious quota system for government jobs hit the streets.

As efforts were under way to restore normalcy, Army Chief Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman has said the interim government would be sworn in around 8 p.m. on Thursday. The advisory council may comprise at most 15 members, he added.

The decision of President Shahabuddin came after the meeting with military leaders and a 13-member delegation from the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement at the presidential palace, said President's Press Secretary Md. Joynal Abedin. The composition of the interim government would be finalized after further consultations with various political factions.